


Across The Lines

by alex4968



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Demons, Ghost Hunters, Graphic Description of Corpses, Haunted Houses, Kind of a ... thriller I guess?, M/M, Murder, Mutual Masturbation, Period-Typical Homophobia, Plot Twists, Rimming, Violence, Zayn is a film student, abusive family mentions, documentary making, feel free to ask me to add anything else!, louis is a writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-10-15 06:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex4968/pseuds/alex4968
Summary: With a camera in hand, Louis sets off on the road trip of his life to explore the most famous haunted houses of the UK. Things don't exactly go to plan.





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> I had every intention to post this all together, but I also haven't posted anything in a while, so I decided to just make this a chaptered fic. I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> PS: my Big Bang posting dates are 4/25/17 and 5/22/17 so be ready to see those up! Im beyond excited!!

It’s just past dawn when Louis tosses his bag into the boot of Zayn’s car.

The entire city is still sleeping as he stands on the gravel of the street beneath his feet, the cold morning air surrounding him. He’s got a wide smile on his face as he shifts his backpack on his shoulders – the one thing he’s decided he’s going to keep on him for the entire trip – and looks at his house.

The two of them have decided to take a year off between their undergraduate degrees and going back for their masters. It’s freeing, in a way, to be able to look around at the town he’s called home his entire life and know that he can leave and still be welcomed back whenever he chooses to return. He’s not going to be gone long, just a year, but it feels like he’s reinventing himself. As soon as the suitcase is settled right beside Zayn’s, he breathes in a final breath of Doncaster air, then closes the door lightly.

“Say goodbye to Doncaster my friend,” Zayn says with a grin on his face. “Next stop, wherever the fuck we want.” He pulls his safety belt over his chest and buckles it into the clasp, and then they’re off. He watches as his childhood house gets smaller as they go, the window he’s spent the last twenty-two summers looking out of getting smaller and smaller, and then Zayn takes a left turn and he can’t see it anymore.

He’ll miss his mum and his sisters, of course he will. He’d missed them terribly from the moment he’d moved into his own flat three years previous, but he knows this isn’t something to be sad about. Leaving home and spreading his wings will help him in his career one day. Or at least that’s what he plans.

 

“I can’t believe you still put sugar in your tea.” Louis says, throwing a sugar packet from the table at Zayn, laughing as it smacks him right in the center of his forehead. Zayn rolls his eyes as he rips open the same packet and dumps it into his cup, then swirls the liquid around with his spoon. They’ve stopped off in a little diner in Leeds for lunch and the atmosphere is wonderful. There’s sunlight streaming in through the windows, every blind wide open, and there’s soft music playing overhead.

“I can’t believe you _don’t_ put sugar in your tea. Maybe that’s why you’re so bitter?” Zayn asks with a little grin and Louis rolls his eyes. Conversation has always flowed easily between them, ever since they met when they were kids. Something about the easy banter and the way silence can fill the space between them yet not feel awkward has always left Louis feeling at ease.

He looks over everything that the diner offers once again as his stomach makes a loud noise. Zayn laughs at him again and he throws another sugar packet at him. He laughs so hard that he snorts when it falls into the mug of (ruined) tea that Zayn has in front of him, and then the two of them are laughing.

They’re accompanied only by one other set of customers, an older couple who are chatting softly as the two of them look over their menus. At their laughter, the older woman of the couple looks over at them and smiles softly. She has wrinkles covering her face and must be well into her late eighties, yet she still has a youthful spark in her eyes. Louis craves that feeling when he gets old, but even now he already feels like he’s losing that feeling at twenty-two.

The waitress walks over to the couple, her long brunette hair falling to the middle of her back even while up in a hairtie, and the old woman says something that makes her laugh. She puts her hand on her shoulder and Louis has to look away because he feels like he’s interrupting some kind of intimate moment.

“So, what can I get for you two?” The woman asks when she migrates over to their table.

“Think I’ll just do pancakes. But I want a hotchocolate too, please.” Zayn says, then folds his menu up and places it down on the table.

“Sure thing. For you?” She asks to Louis, a little smile on her face.

“I’ll do a waffle with a hot chocolate too. Thank you.” He folds his own menu, then stacks the two of them on top of one another and hands them off to the girl.

“Those will be right out!” She walks away, humming a tune under her breathe as she goes. It’s the kind of atmosphere that Louis has always wanted to find, but never been able to in Doncaster. He’s always longed to get away, to find a place where he’s comfortable but where not everyone knows his name when he’s out and about walking on the streets.

He knows this is just a place they’re passing through, that for the next year they won’t be calling anywhere _home._ They’re out, working on a documentary and letting their hair down for a year.

It was just a little over a year ago now that Louis had had the idea. He’d mentioned it to Zayn in a fleeting thought, just a passing idea that he hadn’t really expected his friend to accept, let alone as enthusiastically as he had, and here they are. Their goal is to have fun, mostly, but their second goal is to create a decent documentary about the oldest – and supposedly haunted – houses in the UK. With Zayn being a film major and Louis working on his English degree to become a writer, he thinks it works out perfectly.

Their first stop is about four hours from Leeds, but he doesn’t think they’re going there right away. It’s no rush. Louis is happy to just enjoy the feeling of freedom that comes with having no responsibilities and having no one to turn to at the end of the day.

The waitress brings out their meals before long, and the silence is comfortable between the two of them as they eat. Louis has this tendency to get deep in his own head, to sit and get lost in his thoughts for hours and hours, which, he thinks, is one of the reasons he’s such a good writer. Just in the fact that he can daydream for hours on end without ever getting bored.

He’s always found appreciation in the things around him, like the way people interact with one another, and it’s just little, simple things like that that can spiral him into a full day dream and he can be lost in it for hours.

Zayn understands it better than anyone, so when he feels a foot tap against his calf and snaps out of it to see Zayn smiling at him softly, he just nods appreciatively.

The hot chocolate is probably the best he’s ever had in his life, and the waffle is great, too. This is the exact kind of place he could see himself coming regularly if he were to be able to escape the life of his little village and make his way out into the real world.

They’re back on the road almost as soon as they’ve paid, and Louis feels perfectly at peace. They’re set to go to a hostel tonight, then they have a night on the town planned. Maybe it’s not the smartest plan to get pissed in a town that neither of them are really familiar with, but Louis has long since abandoned living on the safe side. He’s decided that living wild and doing things that are a little scary are what will help him create the best stories one day. No one who has lived a sheltered life has ever written beautiful stories.

 

Music thrums from every corner of the room, the speakers so loud that Louis feels like he can feel it down to his core. He’s got a pink drink in his hand, courtesy of one of the nice, older men at the bar, but he’s found his way out to the dancefloor.

He thinks the best part about having a gay best mate while being gay is being able to go out to gay bars together and not worry about said friend feeling awkward. So as he grinds his arse up against the attractive man behind him and sees Zayn flirting with another guy down the bar, he feels happier than he has in a long time. He doesn’t even know the name of the guy behind him, but he doesn’t really care to know.

He’s not here to pull; he can save that for Donny. But he knows that he’s determined to have the most fun he can, so as he turns around and the man wraps his arms around his waist, he can only smile. “You should buy me a drink first,” He says, batting his eyelashes. He’s just finished the last swig of his last drink, and he can already feel the buzz thrumming through his veins. It’s making it easier.

He’s never been the kind to solicit drinks from horny men at bars, but he’s also fully aware of he and Zayn’s budget. Their fun-factors always seem to be a little bigger than their wallets are deep, so this is probably necessary if he wants to keep going out on the town in every place they stop. “Sure thing,” The man says, but not before he grabs a handful of Louis’ arse. He tosses him a wink and watches as he walks away before he shudders.

He dances with the man for a while longer after he’s got his drink, but as soon as he seems to figure out that Louis isn’t interested in pulling, he walks away. It doesn’t bother him, though, because since he’s always been a lightweight, two drinks has left him feeling perfectly buzzed and happy.

He dances with Zayn for the rest of the night, the two of them just enjoying the fun that comes with the feeling of alcohol running through them and the music surrounding them.

There’s always been a certain kind of feeling that Louis gets when he’s dancing in a club; it’s a kind of euphoria that he’s never quite been able to find the perfect words to describe, but it’s a feeling he doesn’t think he could ever live without. Doncaster doesn’t have any clubs that Louis has ever truly enjoyed. There are plenty of pubs with ancient old men who sit around and watch footie while they get drunk, but the kinds of clubs where he can just lose himself to the beat of the music aren’t common finds where he grew up.

“We should head out.” Zayn says and Louis finally looks around. The clubs nearly emptied out and wait staff are wiping off the tables and booths, so he nods.

They catch the tube back to their hostel, and as soon as Louis’ head hits his pillow, sleep consumes him.

 

When he wakes up, his head is pounding. Zayn’s body is wrapped nearly all the way around his own and there are louder snores coming from his mouth. He groans as the feeling of knives twists around his head and tosses an arm over his face to shield out the light streaming in through the windows. Zayn’s snoring isn’t helping the aching in his head, so he jabs his friend in the ribs with his elbow and watches as he tosses onto his side with a groan.

“Fuck you, too.” Zayn says and Louis just smiles. He knows that Zayn doesn’t normally get hung over – the lucky bastard – so he’s hoping that his friend will be kind enough to go and fetch the both of them breakfast. So he just rolls over and smooshes his face back into the pillow and groans dramatically.

The bed shifts beside him, signaling that Zayn has gotten out, but Louis doesn’t move. He hears some rustling somewhere in the room and then hears a bottle being tossed in his direction. He grabs it and pulls out two of the pain relief tablets, then swallows them dry before he sits up.

“Here we have a hungover Louis,” Zayn says as he pulls out his camera and points it at him. Louis can only grin as he covers his face with a pillow. “Poor, poor Louis in his natural, day after clubbing, habitat. Lying in bed all day… then moping about… asking me to get him things…”

“Oh, sod off.” Louis says with a laugh and throws Zayn’s bed-side pillow at the other man. Zayn turns his camera off and tucks it back into its case and changes his clothes.

“I’m going to go get us both some food. Be ready when I get back, yeah? I want to get out on the road as soon as possible.” Louis sighs but nods as he watches his friend walk out of the room. The sound of traffic buzzing outside of the window is entirely new to Louis, but it’s not a bad kind of new.

Donny was always so quiet; the small-town kind of area he lived in always left him feeling like he was trapped. Here, as he can hear the lives of others buzzing around him he doesn’t feel quite so trapped. He feels like he has every chance to leave if he chooses to, like he could escape if he wanted to, and he will.

 

Warm air floods in through the windows as the car speeds down the motorway. The sky is entirely cloudless, a breathtaking endless blue expanse. Zayn is driving, just three hours after they’ve left their hostel for the night, and they have the entire world ahead of them.

“So, what’s the story of this house again?” Zayn asks as he drives. He has a cigarette in his hand, dangling out of the window.

“Well basically,” He starts, grabbing his journal where he’s written notes about all of the houses he plans for them to visit. He flips to the page with the one they’re heading towards and skims over it again. “The family that last lived there lived in the very late 1800s. They were very, very wealthy but their father was a right arse. The commodore of the Royal Navy. He didn’t come home often, but when he did he would beat the wife and their two daughters. One night, he got really, really pissed and shot the wife.” Louis bites his lip before he presses the glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose. “The two daughters watched, and he knew that it would ruin him if the navy caught word of it, so he tucked the two girls into bed that night and waited for them to fall asleep, then shot the both of them. He claimed it was an intruder, but he told the truth in his journals. When he died, the journals were read by his sister in law and the story was published.”

“Holy shit.” Zayn breathes. “It sounds like this house is going to be haunted as shit. Are we really going to go in there at night?”

“Hell yeah we are.” Louis says with a smile.

 

The door creaks behind him as he closes it tightly. Louis’ heart is already pounding, but he knows that this is the entire reason that they’ve come here – there’s no way they can back out now. He holds Zayn’s second camera tight in his hand as well as his tape recorder that he plans on speaking into so he can listen and write about it later.

“So,” Zayn starts, standing in front of Louis’ camera in his hand. “We’re here, standing in the Whitman’s house, one of the, supposedly, most haunted residences in Manchester.” Zayn starts. Louis smiles. “Tonight, we’re planning on sleeping in here, but we’re also going to see if we can get any kind of connection with the spirits that may or may not reside here.” Louis stops recording after that and watches as Zayn sets another camera up on a tri-pod, just pointing down the hallway. “Hopefully that catches something if we aren’t down here, I guess.” He says, shrugging.

“I honestly don’t even think there’s anything here. But maybe.” Louis says with a shrug. He’s never _really_ believed in ghosts. Maybe it had seemed like a good idea to come to these houses and explore a world that could be fucking terrifying before he was actually _here,_ but now everything seems a little scary. There aren’t any lights in the house and the connection on his cellphone is really, strangely weak.

“Should we go find where we’re supposed to sleep, then?” The owners of the house had sounded incredibly hesitant when Louis had contacted them and mentioned he wanted to film some of the documentary inside of their house. But then they’d mentioned that they hadn’t slept in the house since they were twenty, so they were welcome to stay for a few days to get any filming they needed.

It was nerve wracking now, to think about how someone could own a house this nice and old and be too afraid to live in it. He takes a deep breath as Zayn starts up the stairs, some of the steps moaning beneath their combined weights. “Oh, _fuck!”_ Zayn says, loudly, and Louis nearly jumps out of his skin.

“What!?” He asks, his heart pounding.

“Nothing, you wanker. This was your idea and you’re the one that’s fucking scared.” Zayn says, laughing. Louis just crosses his arms and goes into the nearest room, deciding to choose that one as his own for the night.

 

There’s dust on every surface, but the bed is made up. It’s a four-poster bed with more pillows set out on it than Louis thinks he has in his entire _house,_ but he doesn’t think much about it. “Hello?” He asks to no one. “If there are any ghosts in here, this is like, I guess, where you’d say something, yeah?” He feels like a knob, talking to the walls when he doubts anyone is going to answer him properly.

His belief that ghosts aren’t real is only getting stronger the longer he’s in the house, but he thinks he could still use this as good inspiration for the next novel he plans to write about something paranormal. His creative writing professor had decided to assign them something paranormal for their final assignment, and Louis had really loved it. He loved it more than he would ever admit, but at the same time he knew fuck all about what people thought about ghosts.

He pulls the blankets back on the bed and tosses some of the decorative pillows onto the ground. His phone is at full charge since he’d plugged it in in the car, so he doesn’t feel too bad about not plugging it in before he goes to sleep.

 

It’s probably two or three hours later when he hears footsteps. He’d been laying in bed, tossing and turning the entire time. “Zayn, stop trying to scare me you wanker!” He yells out, but his palms are sweating more than they ever had, despite the fact that his entire body is chilled. He’s under two thick duvets, but everything feels like ice.

Zayn doesn’t respond, so he takes a deep breath and tosses the blanket off of himself and crawls out of bed. He grabs his phone and is slightly taken a-back when he sees that in just the last fifteen minutes since he’d checked it his battery has gone from ninety three percent to only seven percent. His heart is still pounding in his chest, but he pockets the little device and opens the door to the room he’d been in.

The hallway is still equally as dark as it had been, and he is shaking slightly as he walks. “Hello?” He asks again. He still feels like a fucking –

“Hi.” A feminine voice says and he jumps before darting back into the room and closing the door.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” He says, breathes short and heart pounding. “I’m going to fucking sleep and we’re getting out of here as soon as the sun is up.” He’s talking to himself, but it doesn’t feel nearly as weird.

“Goodbye.” The same, small and feminine voice says, the voice gurgled and airy, and Louis would have probably pissed himself if he didn’t have a grip on the fact that he’d been told to expect freaky shit to happen.

The footsteps start to sound a little more like running, but they get farther away and the calm settles back into Louis’ bones as the house falls silent once again.

 

“That was fucking wild.” Is the first thing Zayn says when they’re both sat in the car the next morning. They hadn’t said a word to each other as they walked out of the house, but as soon as the door was closed it was almost like the barrier was lifted and speaking about what had happened didn’t feel as taboo. “Did you hear like… running and shit all last night? Like down all the fucking halls?”

“Yeah. I thought you were fucking with me, then I went to yell at you and like… shit… Are ghosts really fucking real? Like, was _that_ fucking real?”

“I don’t know man. But at least now we know what to expect in the next house.”

“Fuck. I need to grow a pair and not just hide in bed when we get to the next house.” Zayn laughs and rolls his eyes but Louis isn’t really exaggerating. He wants to do _something._ If ghosts are actually real and they have the chance to experience something with them, he doesn’t want to waste the chance. He wants to make it as real and as exciting as he can. Or if someone is just punking them, then he at least wants to take the piss as much as he can, right?

 

The next house turned up with nothing. No noises, no drained batteries, no footage. It was a total bust, but neither of them were _completely_ discouraged. The footage from the first night is probably the only thing that is still egging him on, but as they drive down to the next house, there’s actually excitement thrumming through his veins.

“There’ve been so many fucking sightings here,” He says with a grin. “I’m almost certain we’re going to get something.” He decides to get some sleep after that. Being at his best to deal with ghosts would probabaly be the best idea he’s had on this entire trip, so as he sleeps, he tries not to let the excitement keep him wired.

 

The music is loud, enveloping them in the sound as they drive down the road. It’s a long, winding road with an ocean view down nearly the entire expanse. On the other side of the road there’s a drop, probably a few hundred feet with tall, ancient trees climbing up towards the sky. The railing between the drop and the road is thin, but he doesn’t think Zayn’s a bad enough driver to need to worry, nor does he think they’re going fast enough.

Besides, the house is just a few more miles up the road, and then they’ll have what he hopes is going to be their best footage yet.

He sings along to the song loudly. He’s got his window rolled down and the warm air is blowing against his face and whipping his hair around as he sticks his arm out the window. It almost feels like he’s flying, with the view so incredible and wide over what feels like the entire country. He can see himself living like this regularly, could get used to feeling this wild, this free.

When he looks back to the front, the road is long and straight and it doesn’t feel like this could ever end. “Five more miles, right?” He asks, turning to Zayn.

“Three,” He corrects, a wide smile on his face. “I can’t wait to explore this beast of a house. I’m psyched.” He says and glances over to Louis. When Louis looks forward, there’s a minivan speeding on the road, down the lane opposite of them, and Louis can’t help but smile. He loves the idea of having children one day, of being able to go on road trips and experience the world with a family of his own.

“So, lets go through this again, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure.” Louis says with a smile.

“How illegal is it for us to be going in here…?” Zayn asks with a snort; Louis knows he’s not actually concerned, but it is just a slightly terrifying reminder that they are completely and totally alone out here.

“Pretty illegal. The owner of the house is dead as of about 2006, so the Council technically owns the house now. But as far as I’ve read and seen, no one has even been out here since the old man died.”

“Who even was he?”

“Supposedly some long-lost relative of the Styles family. They lived there back in the early 1800s and all of them died sometime in the middle of the night. No one knows exactly what happened, but everyone just kind of assumes it was a mass homicide.”

“Damn. How many were there?”

“Three kids, I read. The oldest son, Harold, then two twin girls.”

“Wow. I’m pumped as hell. The other night was scary as fuck, but it was so fun.”

“Right!” He says with a smile. “This should be fucking great.”

It isn’t until Zayn turns on the next curve that the breathe catches in Louis’ throat. As they go, he notices the little girl standing right in the center of the road before anything else. Zayn gasps, his eyes wide as he jerks the wheel to the left.

It all happens much too fast, yet so slow all the same. Louis feels like the air has been ripped from his lungs as he watches the world moving around him. It’s almost as if everything is moving in slow motion as he feels his body jerked in different directions. The road around him is spinning, yet he feels almost as if he could count each pebble resting on the ground as it does and each shard of glass that flies in the air surrounding him.

There’s an intense pain in his leg, then in his head as he’s jerked around yet another direction.

He looks over to Zayn, who’s hands are held firmly on the steering wheel, a look of horror across his face, and then everything goes dark.

 

His head is pounding when he wakes up, and there’s a long, deep cut down his thigh. He’s lying on the ground, his weight supported by a tree against the hill. He gasps when he looks down and sees that he’s stopped right before a nearly completely vertical fall and tries his hardest to calm his pounding heart.

He brings a hand up to his forehead where it feels wet and bites his lip when he pulls his hand away to see three of his fingers almost completely soaked in blood just from a light touch. He stands, then, and a sharp pain shoots up his leg and tingles in the bottom of his spine, making him cry out and grab on to the tree for support. After surviving being ejected from the car, he imagines it would be just his luck, to fall to his death.

He hears a groan from somewhere and suddenly realizes that Zayn is still around here somewhere. “ _Zayn!”_ He calls out, but his voice is just barely above a whisper. His throat is sore, and a touch against it makes him wince. He thinks he must have hit his neck against something when he was ejected from the car.

When he finds the car, it’s turned upside down and he gasps as he looks at Zayn, dangling upside down and tied in by his seatbelt. His arms are hung upside down, hanging limp and almost lifeless. His eyes well up with tears as he kicks out the rest of the glass from the passengers side of the car.

He climbs in through the window and crawls, ignoring the pain from both the cut and the way the glass on the ground is digging into his kneecaps. “Zayn,” He says, but his voice comes out more as a whimper, “Zayn,” He says again and presses two of his fingers against the pulse point at his neck. His hands are trembling, and he counts and keeps counting the seconds that he feels _nothing._

The tears start streaming down his face, then, and he forces himself out of the car. His entire body feels numb and cold all the way to the core of his being and he doesn’t know how to feel about that – doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He doesn’t understand how this is _fair –_ how he could live through this and Zayn couldn’t.

They crashed at least forty miles from any kind of civilization and the van that had sped past them was the only vehicle he’d seen the entire time they’d been on this road. He searches for his phone, digs through his pockets and then Zayn’s and finds nothing. He looks and looks but finds nothing, and the dread settles deep in his bones when he realizes that he has no way of contacting anyone to come and help.

The sun is barely an hour from setting and he knows that he has to get somewhere. The only building he could possibly walk to with his injury is the haunted house they intended to travel to, and he can only hope that maybe – just _maybe –_ it has running water and he can somehow clean himself up so he at least doesn’t die of infection.

He takes a deep breath as he looks to the top of the hill in front of him. The trees are still reaching towards the sky and suddenly they look so much taller than they had when he was watching them from the road. Everything seems so much more overwhelming now.

The car hadn’t toppled all the way down, but it’s at least a thirty-foot climb that feels like an entire mountain with the feeling in his leg. He takes a deep breath as he takes the first step and forces himself upward slowly. He grabs a tree as he goes, supporting his weight on the leg that doesn’t hurt, but little whimpers still leave his mouth with each step that he manages to take.

He’s not sure how long it takes him to get to the top, but by the time he does, his entire body is shaking. He feels weak and cold and nothing feels right, but staring at the seemingly endless expanse of road laid out in front of him, he almost wishes he’d died, too. But those aren’t the kinds of thoughts he can afford to have right now. Zayn still has a chance if he can get somewhere and call someone, right? He has to fucking do _something._

The sun is just barely peeking over the horizon, shining off of the ocean view behind the house as he finally gets where he’s been looking for. It’s tall and almost looks menacing for a moment with the slight silhouetted glow that surrounds it. Six large windows adorn the face of the house and a long, cobblestone drive path leads to the front.

The pain in his leg has slowly started to dissolve, but he hopes that’s just because he’s managed to forget about it. The other thoughts about why the pain has gone are all too terrifying for him to be able to manage – so he doesn’t. He won’t let his mind start to dwell on what _could_ happen. He needs to focus. All he needs is to sit – to really get a moment to look at his injuries – and then he can find a way to get home. To get back to some kind of civilization and get help.

As the house gets closer, he sees a boy standing on the porch. His eyebrows furrow, but then his heart feels like it skips a beat. “Hey!” He calls out and the boy turns to face him. “Hey! Help! My friend and I we crashed –“ He can’t see the boy’s face, but he can tell that he has longer hair, just from the way he’s got it pulled up into a well-held bun. He’s tall and appears to be well built and Louis prays silently for a moment that he knows what to do. Louis is completely and totally lost on what he’s meant to do. Helplessness and fear have spread through every inch of his being and he doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to deal with all of this.

“Are you injured?” The boy asks, concern written over his face. His eyebrows are thick but still furrowed together. Louis nods, a grimace on his face. “Come inside, I’ll help you.” Louis lets the boy put his arm beneath his own and help him inside.

Everything feels so – _surreal._ Looking around, it’s the sudden realization that everything feels a little dimmer, that his body feels a little colder, and his wounds don’t hurt anymore, that makes him feel a little more sick to his stomach than he had before. The boy opens the door to the house and it creaks as it opens, almost like it hasn’t been opened in _years._ A single glance inside of the house makes Louis feel worse. Dust coats nearly every surface and cobwebs dangle from the ceiling. There’s a plain white sheet that covers something that almost seems to be in the shape of a piano in the corner.

“What the hell?” Louis asks, his voice higher as he looks over to the boy. His green eyes are the brightest thing in the room and Louis almost finds himself getting lost in them for a moment, before he remembers the anger bubbling in his chest. He’s wasting his time – he’s wasting _Zayn’s_ time. He doesn’t even know if there’s a way he could still be saved at this point but he has to try – he has to try or else he’ll never forgive himself. “You can’t just – you can’t just invite me into a home that isn’t yours!” He’s nearly shouting by the end of his sentence, but the other boy just seems confused. “Where’s your phone? Or _a_ phone? I need to call the police.”

“I’m sorry… My what? This is my home.” Footsteps run on wood from what sounds like the floor above them, but no dust specs fall from the roof and his heart skips a beat yet again. This boy seems so eerily genuine about not knowing what a phone is that Louis doesn’t know what to think. He’s not sure if this boy has actually inherited this house or not and he has no idea what he’s supposed to think, but he feels a wet warmth filling the rims of his eyes and panic slowly starts to settle in his chest. “Please, sit down. How’s the pain?” Louis cringes when he looks down at his leg, the wound still clearly open beneath the material of his pants, but he doesn’t want to look at it directly. He’s always fainted at the sight of blood and just the hardening red of the material surrounding the cut is making him feel queasy. He doesn’t want to sit on the dusty couches and have to fear of the infection he could get from sitting somewhere not clean with open wounds, but the pain in his leg makes it seem more appealing, so he does.

“It’s not too bad. I think adrenaline or something must be dulling it,” He says through an exhale. The curly haired boy takes a seat beside him and he doesn’t even seem uncomfortable with the mess around them. “Is there any way to contact the police? My friend is – he didn’t have a pulse when I crawled out of the car and –“ oh, _god._ It all crashes into him, a sudden realization as soon as he says it out loud.

Zayn is dead. It’s probably been hours since he crawled out of that car and there’s no way anyone could save him now.

Zayn didn’t have a pulse when he checked in the car and it’s then that tears start pouring down his face again. “Oh my _god,_ he – he didn’t have a pulse! We have to get help, we have to do _something!”_ He says through sobs.

“Hey, hey, listen. I am so, so sorry you had to experience that.” Curly haired boy says and takes the tie from around his neck and forms a make-shift tourniquet around Louis’ wound. He’s not even sure if he’s still bleeding, but that reassurance that he won’t be any more settles some of the panic. “But as you said, he’s no longer alive. There’s nothing that can be done. You must focus on yourself now.”

Louis swallows and forces himself to take four deep breathes. It calms him down more than he would ever be able to admit, but there’s a dull ache in his chest when he thinks about Zayn. It hurts. It hurts more than anything else. This was _his_ idea – he brought him out here and now – Then he turns and out of the window he sees flashing red and blue lights and hears the scream of sirens as they race down the motorway. “Wait! Wait! Those are the police! They have to take me to a hospital!”

He gets up and limps to the door, supporting his own weight on the door frame, but the sound of sirens is gone and the glow of the colors is as well. Dread settles deeper into his bones when he realizes that he won’t be able to get any help and the curly haired boy puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll come looking.” He says, but his voice doesn’t sound convincing. Louis isn’t sure why that leaves such a hollow feeling in his chest.

“What’s your name?” He asks, suddenly realizing he hadn’t bothered asking before, too caught up in everything going on around him. He feels a little better knowing someone contacted the police and that Zayn will be found. He feels a little better knowing that there’s a chance he could be found, too, considering this is the only place he could have walked to.

“I’m Harry Styles.” He says, a gentle smile on his lips as he reaches his hand out for a handshake.

“Louis Tomlinson.” His skin is warm when he touches him that time, but there’s a kind of dread that settles into him when he touches him. So this kid is most likely the last inheritor of this home – but it’s almost eerie. Why would he be here without a phone, without a car, when the house looks like it hasn’t been lived in in years?

“I do apologize for the state the house is in. It’s rather… overwhelming, I suppose.” The boy says. “The area up the stairs is in much better condition. My sisters and I live up there most of the time.” Louis swallows.

“And your parents?” Harry’s face gets a hardened look and Louis bites his lip.

“They’ve been gone a while now. It’s just the three of us.”

“How old are you?” Harry furrows his eyebrows.

“Is there a reason for all of your questions?” Louis blinks a few times, unsure exactly how he’s supposed to respond to that.

“Well you’ve just… invited me into your home and we don’t know each other. So I thought maybe it would be appropriate to get to know each other.” Louis says, but he feels like Harry’s gaze is burning into him as he looks away. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to feel or even how he’s supposed to act. Everything feels far too overwhelming.

“Right. Right.” Harry’s face turns a shade red, the tips of his ears going the same shade. “I apologize. I’m just. Um.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m sure it’s uh, awkward. To have a stranger in your home. Especially an injured one. I really am sorry about all of this.” Louis closes the door and lets himself just be surrounded by the house once again.

A silence falls between them and Louis decides to take that moment to look around once again. He feels better now that he knows that there are police that were sent and who can hopefully help Zayn. His head isn’t spinning and he’s no longer worrying as excessively as he had been, so he glances around.

The foyer has high ceilings and the windows are all still intact. What looks to be the remnants of an old chandelier hangs from the ceiling, but most of it has broken off and fallen to the ground. Two mirrors hang on the far wall, but one is broken. There’s an old, faded painting hanging over the staircase, but it’s so faded that he can’t make out the features of the people in the painting.

At the landing of the staircase there’s another set of grand windows that display the darkness over the ocean behind the house beautifully, the moon hung high in the sky. He thinks that this house is gorgeous and he realizes why Harry is here, despite it having been empty for so long. If he had any kind of property rights over this house he would certainly find himself here more often than not.

There are indentations in the wall beside the windows on the landing that look like they once housed some kind of relic, but it’s missing now. It’s almost like he’s stepped into a framework of a piece of history, tread over by time yet still preserved in slight little ways.

Harry breaks the silence after a few moments, making Louis jump just slightly. He hadn’t realized that the other boy had moved away and gone to remove the sheet that did cover an old, grand piano and he folds it up and tosses it over the back of the couch. “I’m nineteen years old. My sisters are both eleven.” Louis smiles. “Would you be alright if I asked you some questions?”

“Yes, of course. Of course.” Louis says through an exhale.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-One. Twenty-two in a few months.” Harry nods.

“Where are you from? Your accent is not familiar to me.”

“Doncaster.”

“Far from home, then?”

“Yeah.”

“What brought you all the way out here?”

“My friend and I…” Louis takes a breath. He hopes someone is helping Zayn. “We were travelling to houses that we um –“ He has to look at Harry for a moment because he starts to laugh. “We were planning on investigating houses that we’ve heard were haunted. I’ve heard that this house was empty for decades, but uh, I suppose I heard wrong, yeah?” Louis is smiling, but Harry’s lips furrow down in a slight frown for a moment before he hums and turns away.

“Let’s go upstairs.” Harry says suddenly and Louis isn’t sure if he’s said something that offended him or not, but he just bites his lip.

“Yeah, um, okay.” He follows Harry to the staircase and pauses at the bottom, sighing softly. His leg doesn’t hurt anymore and it concerns him, but at the same time, it’s nice to not have that pain.

“Do you need help?” Harry asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“Um, no I think I’ll be fine.” He says and takes the first step without pain. As he climbs, he decides not to think anything of it. As long as he doesn’t think about it, it won’t bother him, right? Besides, if he can walk without pain, then as soon as the sun rises, he can go out and pray that he sees a car that will give him a ride to the city.

When he gets to the top of the stairs, the breath is nearly knocked out of his lungs. Everything looks beautiful! There are crisp white beams that go from the floor to the ceiling with arches over the family room, where two young, identical looking girls sit beside one another. A rug is laid out along the floor and there are couches placed about the room. The fireplace isn’t lit, but for some reason Louis isn’t having any trouble seeing in the dark. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling yet again and it isn’t lit, but the crystalized glass is still beyond beautiful.

Harry is smiling when Louis turns and looks at him and the girls squeal when they see him, running to the taller boy and wrapping their arms around his waist. “Harry!” They both call out, their excitement about seeing him clear in their voices.

“Hello, girls.” He says with a smile, patting each of their heads sweetly before they pull away. “This is Louis. He is our guest here, alright.” He gives each of them a pointed look, like he’s telling them to behave and Louis almost has to giggle under his breath once again. It reminds him so much of his own sisters. “Louis, this is Amberlynn and Rosaline.”

“It’s lovely to meet you both.” They’re both wearing matching dresses that hang down to their ankles and there are bows on their heads. Both of them are blonde haired, but their green eyes are just as bright and stunning as Harry’s, which really shows that they are related.

“Well, Louis. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you would like.” Harry says with a smile. “Would you like me to show you to your room?”

 

When Louis wakes the next morning, he feels strange. His body feels almost numb – and everything is _freezing._ The sun is coming up over the horizon as he looks out the window and he breathes deeply as he forces himself to stand. There are no mirrors in the room, but he really can’t find it in himself to care.

His jeans are still ripped from where the glass cut his leg, but he unwraps the tie from around his thigh and finally removes the material from his legs just to look at how bad it really is. He gasps when he sees it, the sound sudden and unsure.

There’s no pain and no new blood, just the crusted red all around the cut, but the wound looks nearly deep enough to have touched his bone. He has to take a deep breath before he can really think about how all of this could even be possible. His heart is pounding and his head hurts, too, but he still starts to cry.

He can hear Rosaline and Amberlynn laughing from the living room outside, followed by the deep rumble of Harry’s voice, but he doesn’t want to go out. He wants to figure out what the hell is going on and how he can get out of here.

“Good morning, Louis!” The two girls say at the same time and Harry gives him a smile.

“I’m going to um,” He starts, feeling horribly rude for ignoring the girls but he feels like he’s going to panic if he doesn’t get away from these walls and get _out._ He needs to get out before he suffocates. “I’m going to try and find someone to take me to the city. To the hospital. I need – I can’t – I have to go. Im sorry.” And then he’s darting down the stairs.

He opens the front door and runs outside, covering his eyes against the harsh glow of the sun against them and just _goes._ He has no clue where he’s going or how he’s even going to get there, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

He runs back to where the car had crashed and looks down over the cliff, that same, horrible guilty feeling building up inside of him as he does. The car isn’t there anymore, but the wreckage is. There are trees knocked down and the metal is bent and ruined from where the car had gone through the railing. There’s ropes tying off the opening, and his eyes fill with tears once again as he looks at it.

He sits down on the side of the road, his back against the railing and waits. As soon as he sees a car, he hopes he can wave them down.

 

No cars ever come for him. No one drives by until the sun is long past down beyond the horizon and he’s surrounded by darkness. “Louis!” He hears Harry shouting like he’s looking for him and tears fall from his eyes once again. He feels like he’s cried more in the last twenty four hours than he has throughout his entire life, and it doesn’t feel right. He just wants to go home and he wants everything to be normal again.

“I’m here!” He calls out, sniffles, and wipes the back of his hands over his eyes to get rid of the tears.

“Would you like me to walk you back?” Harry asks from about ten feet away, but as he gets closer Louis realizes he’d changed his clothes. He has a formal shirt on, the coat pulled over his shoulders and buttoned except for the top three, a tie around his neck and a little red piece of cloth hanging from the breast pocket. “You’re crying. Are you alright?” Harry asks and Louis just shrugs. Harry takes the cloth from his pocket and hands it to him, so Louis pats at the wetness at his eyes.

“Thank you. I’m sorry I was such a knob earlier.”

“It’s all right. I’m sure you’re going through quite a lot right now, so my sisters and I genuinely do understand.”

“Why are you wearing a suit?”

“I wear something similar to this daily. Do you… not?” Louis blinks a few times and shakes his head.

“No, I wear suits to like, funerals. Or weddings.” Harry smiles and Louis, finally, does too. “It looks nice on you, though.”  

“I appreciate that.” Harry says with a grin. Louis sighs softly as a comfortable silence falls between the two of them as they walk. He’s not hungry – the stress likely having been what has taken his appetite away, so he doesn’t bother asking Harry if they’ve already eaten. Food just sounds like something he couldn’t really stomach anyway.

 

The days go on, just like that. Louis hasn’t gotten his appetite back and he goes out to the road every morning to see if anyone will drive by. Several cars drive by, but none of them acknowledge him. After the second week of trying, he’s given up.

He’s just laying in bed, staring at the ocean outside of his window when there’s a knock on his door and Harry comes in.

“Hi.” Harry says and smiles softly. “I wanted to check on you. How are you doing?”

“I’m alright.” Louis says and sighs. He isn’t alright. He’s half certain that he smells horrible and that his clothes are probably beyond disgusting, but he isn’t sure if he has the energy to stand anymore, let alone worry about all of that.

“Why don’t you come out here? The girls and I are going to light the fireplace and play a game.” Louis just shrugs. “Come on, our game nights are infamous for being fun.”

“Well, alright. I suppose.” He pulls himself out of bed and follows a smiling Harry back into the family room where the girls are sat, giggling, playing with one another’s hair. Harry goes to the fireplace and lights a match, then tosses it in and Louis watches as the flame slowly comes alive.

Amberlynn pulls out a game board that Louis doesn’t recognize, as well as an old-looking dice and a few little game pieces.

It turns out being much more fun than he assumed it would have been. They were all laughing and having a decent time by the end of the night and the warmth from the fire helped Louis feel a little more whole than he had since he’d left Zayn. “Tell us a story, Louis.” Rosaline says as Harry puts the game back into a drawer.

She’s got a doll in her hand, a glass doll, and Louis hums as he thinks. “What kind of story?”

“Just your favorite.” She says and Harry is looking at him with a fond smile on his face.

“Alright, well, once upon a time there was a princess. A strong princess who loved to run in the fields and ride her horses,”

“What was her name?” She asks, her mouth open in interest. Both of the girls have scooted closer to Louis, now.

“Mary,” Louis says, the first name that came to mind. He would normally use whatever child’s name he was telling the story to, but since there are two of them he didn’t want to exclude one. “She was very beautiful, with the brightest green eyes and long, flowing blonde hair. Each day, she would ride her favorite horse, Shadow, to the shores to watch the sunset before the king and queen expected her to return to the palace.

But one day, while she was at the shore, there was a ship docked that she had never seen before. A tall, handsome man was standing on the docks and looking out to the sea, but as soon as he saw her, he smiled. She didn’t speak to him nor he to her, but for weeks on end this went on. One day, the princess was finally approached by the mysterious man from the dock.

He was the most kind and gentle soul she had ever met, but her heart was already promised to another.” Both of the girls gasped and Harry chuckled. “She was to marry the prince of the neighboring province, so as their meetings went on and their love for one another grew stronger, she had to keep a deeper and deeper secret.”

“Thank you, Louis, for your wonderful story, but I think the girls are already up past their bedtime.”

“But Harry,” Both girls whined. “Please, just a bit longer? We want to hear the story.”

“I can finish it for you two tomorrow.” He says with a smile and the both of them sigh before standing and running off to their rooms.

“Thank you for that. I’m sure they’re more than tired of hearing my stories.”

“You’re a really good big brother to them.” Harry smiles at that.

“Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“What do you guys… do all day? Do they not go to school?” Harry bites his lip.

“Um no, they don’t. I work a lot on the house and some other things and they will usually go to the beach and play or just stay in their rooms and find something to entertain themselves. It works out surprisingly well.” Louis knows it isn’t his place to comment on the fact that the girls don’t go to school, so he just stays quiet about that. They seemed intelligent anyway and not like they had never been to school before, so he just assumes they’re maybe trying to figure something out.

“Well that’s good. I am trying to get out of here because I’m sure you don’t want me here anymore. I feel like I’ve long overstayed my welcome. But you know how far the city is. I wouldn’t be able to walk there on my own.”

“You can stay here as long as you want, like I said. It’s not a burden to have you here at all. In fact, I actually quite enjoy the company.” Harry says with a soft, gentle smile.

“Thank you.” Louis says softly, unsure how he’s supposed to respond.

“Tell me about yourself? I feel like I don’t know very much about you.”

“Well I’m a writer. I’m studying journalism and creative writing in university and next year I’ll be starting my masters degree. I am the oldest of seven siblings, my mum lives back in Doncaster with her second husband. I was studying in Manchester, but I went home for summer holidays and now that’s drawing to a close but I still plan on taking a year off between now and returning to school. I really like electronic music? Like, dancing and stuff. Clubbing is probably one of my favorite things to do.” Louis says with a smile. “How about you?”

“Well um,” Harry says, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not employed, but I don’t mind. I busy myself mostly with just working around the house and building things and watching my sisters. I really enjoy reading, though I’ve read all of the books in this house and haven’t gotten anything new. I enjoy playing and listening to classical music when I can.” Louis smiles.

“Does it not get boring being around here all the time?”

“Oh, it does. It’s horribly boring.” Harry says with a laugh. “But I’ve grown used to it.”

“You seem like such an interesting person. How did you end up here? So far away from everything?”

“I’ve lived here my entire life.” Louis furrowed his eyebrows.

“Wow. I guess the source I got my information from before was totally wrong. I was totally sure this house was empty.”

“Nope.” Harry says with a laugh. “This has always been my home. I love it here.” Louis nods and smiles. “Perhaps it’s best if we sleep for tonight. It’s been a pleasure talking to you and I hope to be able to spend a bit more time with you tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Louis says and watches as Harry stands and pours water over the fire. He smiles softly once he’s alone as he thinks about how weird this entire situation is, but he also feels like it’s the best thing that could have happened to him like this. All of it felt so overwhelming, but now everything is fine. Everything will be fine.

 

The next night is almost the exact same, except Louis stays with the three of them for nearly the entire day. When they all wake, the girls run all around the house, giggling and laughing and making just an overall good feeling settle over the house. Harry looks sleep-soft and incredibly beautiful, Louis thinks, when he crawls out of bed and he still has his pajamas on.

“Good morning, Louis.” Harry says with a gentle smile and rubs the sleep out of his eyes as he walks down the stairs from the third floor where his room is.

“Good morning, Harry.” He says with a matching smile. He goes to the couch and sits down right beside the window and looks out over the miles and miles of nature around them. It’s such a beautiful sight and a beautiful place to be. He thinks he could probably get used to this if he had the chance.

“Do you want to talk for a while before we’re stolen away by the girls? Their weekend time is their Harry time, as they call it. I believe they’re taking me down to the beach today, and you’re welcome to come if you’d like.”

“I’d love to.” He says with another smile. “So like, do you have your groceries delivered or something?” Harry paused and quirked an eyebrow, looking at Louis like he was making no sense. “Like, you said you don’t have a car, right? How do you get food here?” Harry blinks a few times and then gets a look on his face that Louis can’t read.

“Oh, um, my sisters have a garden that they work in, down by the beach. You can see that as well if you’d like when we’re down there.” Louis shrugs and smiles.

“Cool.”

 

The girls swim while he and Harry hang back on the beach. The sun is high in the sky and Louis is drinking water while laying out on a blanket that Harry had brought. “So, tell me more about yourself?” He asks to Harry, tilting his head to the side and looking over at the other man. He’s got just a plain white dress shirt on with black trousers that he’s rolled up his calves, and the shirt is undone to the fourth button.

“Hm, I’m not really sure what there is to tell. What do you want to know?” Harry’s eyes catch the sun that illuminates the sand around them, turning the white into almost a shimmer around his body and pale skin. Of course Louis had realized that Harry was beautiful before, but now it all feels so much more real. Now that he isn’t worrying about grieving and he isn’t thinking about anything except where he is, here with Harry, he can really focus on it. He has such beautiful features: a strong jaw, bright eyes, plump, full lips.

Louis suddenly has a strong urge to kiss him, but decides against it. The last thing he would want to do would be to make Harry uncomfortable when he’s staying in his home.

“Who’s your favorite author?”

“Shakespear.” He says without hesitation. His voice can really only be compared to pouring honey. Thick and slow yet still so beautiful. “Yours?”

“Bronte. Your favorite composer?”

“That’s a hard one. I can’t pick. Do you like classical?”

“No, not particularly. My mum made me take piano lessons for most of my life when I really just wanted to play guitar.”

“You play?”

“Yeah.” He says shyly. “I like to consider myself at least half decent.”

“Do you think you could play something for us tonight? I’d love to hear you.” Louis grins and nods. It’s been a couple of years since he’s had the chance to play anything, but the thought of it makes him happy. He’d always hated it when he was a child, but now that it’s his choice to play rather than something he’s being forced to do, he’s found that he actually enjoys it.

“Of course. Maybe we can dust off that piano downstairs?”

“There’s another one upstairs that’s nicer than that one if you’d like to use that? I know I haven’t invited you up on the third floor yet… That’s somewhat personal to me, but if you’d like to come up there tonight, you’re welcome to.” Louis feels his heart skip a beat and nods, unsure what else to say. He isn’t sure how he could express his appreciation, but when he sees how wide Harry’s smile is, he thinks he’s done alright.

 

“Mr.Louis would you pleeeease finish your story?” Rosaline asks, sitting on the floor with her dress pooled around her. Amberlynn is on the couch with Harry, laying down with her head in his lap. Louis is still sitting at the piano bench even though he’s long since finished playing.

“Of course.” He says with a little laugh. “Where was I?”

“With the girl going to see the mysterious man at the dock every night but she was promised to another man.” She says, her eagerness clear in her voice.

“Hm, right. Okay. So, one day, the princess goes to the dock and her mysterious sailor doesn’t turn up. She waits and waits until the sun is set and she’s long past due home. This goes on night after night until one day, she almost gives up. For weeks she goes and waits, abandoning everything except for her love for her mysterious sailor.

But, the night before she is set to be wed and an entire year after her love has disappeared, she sees that same, unfamiliar sail flying high above the ship settled in at the dock. She gasps and runs down the dock, her shoes clicking against the wood and she stands at the edge of it, looking up into the intimidating ship. She dared not to board it, since she knows as well as anyone that a woman on a ship is bad luck, but she calls out his name and stands there, waiting for him to emerge.

It's right before the sun is about to set once again that she finally hears that familiar voice and she turns around. There he is, her mysterious man standing right before her after an entire, long year. ‘Where have you been?’ She cried as he pulled her into an embrace, ‘Oh, my love,’ the man said, ‘I have been out searching the seas for only the best of jewels and shells that could possibly begin to describe my love for you. While I know our love is forbidden, I forever hope you know it rings true.’

He ties a necklace of the most beautiful jewels around her neck and she shakes her head, ‘It could not be forbidden when I love you so. I could come with you! Take me away from here to a place we can love freely,’. But the sailor could only turn away and look to the horizon where the sun was slowly beginning to set.

‘My love, I could never force you into a life such as my own. I know you love me, but you should not. I am a pirate, a theif. I have stolen your heart wrongly and I hope that one day you can heal, but you too have stolen my heart.’

‘I do not care what you do!’ the princess cried. ‘I love you!’ The prince tried and tried as much as he could to convince the princess that she could never return to her life if she chose to come with him, but still, when she put her foot on her ship, she knew she was home.

So they sailed off together, the jewles around her neck more beautiful than anything any prince of any land could ever get her, but the love of her pirate was already more than enough.” Rosaline was grinning happily as he finished his story and then she hugged him tightly.

“Please never leave us, Mr.Louis. I really enjoy having you here.”

“You don’t have to call me Mr.Louis, sweetheart. Just Louis is fine.” She hugs him tighter and when Louis looks over, Harry is smiling.

 

Louis falls asleep on the couch that night, completely by accident, but when he wakes up, it’s to Harry’s arms holding him. “Hm?” He asks, shuffling in his hold and blinking up at him.

“Oh, hi. Sorry, didn’t think you’d wake up.” Louis smiles and laughs a little as Harry sets him down.

“Were you really going to carry me to bed? That’s so sweet.” He blushes, just slightly, as Harry nods.

“Yeah, I figured you’d be more comfortable there.”

“Thank you, Harry.” He says, but he doesn’t think he’s really just thanking him for offering to carry him. He’s thanking him for everything – for his hospitality and kindness and _everything._

 

The days go on and Louis slowly begins to find that he’s so much happier here than he’d ever thought he would be. He braids the girl’s hair at night and it reminds him so much of his sisters. He knows that his time is slowly running out of how long he should stay here, but he isn’t entirely ready to leave.

Harry has his arms wrapped around his waist and Louis hums a soft tune under his breath as Harry spins them around. It’s a poor attempt at dancing, especially since there’s no real music, but it’s more fun than he ever would have imagined. “You can stand on my feet if you’d like.” Harry says with a grin and Louis rolls his eyes.

“Are you calling me a bad dancer?”

“Well I wasn’t _calling_ you a terrible dancer, but you sort of are.” Louis fake gasps and presses a hand over his heart in mock offense. Harry is grinning still and pulls Louis closer to his body, their chests pressed together. Louis bites his lip, suppressing the urge to ask Harry to kiss him, to kiss Harry, to do _something._

He stands on Harry’s feet anyway and lets the younger boy spin them around and smiles and laughs the entire time. The thing is, Harry’s an incredible dancer. He moves his body in such elegant ways that makes Louis want to watch him for as long as he can. He seems so confident in the way he moves, too, and it makes everything all the more complicated.

He smiles as Harry lifts him up – _lifts him up –_ and sets him off of his feet. Then he does a little bow and Louis smiles and laughs. “Louis?” He asks softly, a blush on his cheeks.

“Yes, Harold?” Harry rolls his eyes but he steps a bit closer.

“I suppose this is… incredibly… unorthodox, yes? But um, would you be alright if maybe… If I kissed you?” Louis takes in a sharp breathe and meets Harry’s eyes. He almost looks scared, like he fears that Louis is going to reject him. They’ve been perhaps closer than what he would just consider friends in the last week, but at the same time, there was never anything there that distinctly pressed them over that line of intimacy.

“Yes. Yes you can kiss me.” He says and watches that same, happy grin spread over Harry’s face before he gently brings his hands to either side of Louis’ face and leans in, pressing their lips together. It’s so soft and gentle that Louis almost melts beneath his touch.

As soon as he pulls away, and then he turns to the window and sees flashing lights. He furrows his eyebrows and walks to the window, looking outside and seeing a cop car.

“What is this, Harry? What’s happened?” He asks, suddenly feeling ill and concerned. Harry’s face has almost gone pale and he looks nearly terrified.

“Listen, I know this isn’t exactly what you want to hear, but I really don’t think you should go out there. I know you don’t understand now, but you will. Please, just trust me.” Harry says, but Louis can barely hear anything over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He goes down the stairs and watches as the officer turns the lights off on his car, then steps out. He doesn’t want to leave Harry, he doesn’t. He knows that he could be happy here, but he also knows that he has a life to get back to. He can’t stay trapped here without any technology or transportation for much longer. He’s certain his family is beyond worried sick by now.

“I need to, Harry. I know you’re happy here, but I have a life I need to get back to. Thank you for letting me stay with you while I did. I really do appreciate it.” Harry follows him down the stairs, but Louis doesn’t worry about that.

“Hey!” Louis says as the officer walks by. Harry is standing on the porch, his little sisters behind him. “Hello? Officer?” He asks louder. He furrows his eyebrows, his stomach twisting with the thought that he’s being so blatantly ignored by someone who’s meant to help him.

Then Zayn steps out and Louis almost falls over. He’s using a crutch to walk, but other than that he looks fine and alive.

“Zayn!” Louis screams, tears filling his eyes as he runs over to his friend. Zayn doesn’t even _acknowledge_ him, though, and Louis takes a step back.

“Thanks for brining me here.” Zayn says to the officer who smiles at him.

“It’s no problem, kid. Go on inside. I’ll just be waiting out here.” Zayn nods and walks inside and Louis follows him, his heart feeling more and more like it’s shattering inside of his chest.

Zayn sits on the dusty floor as soon as he’s inside and it’s quiet for a long time. “I really don’t know why I’m here,” Zayn starts, his eyebrows furrowed. “I guess this is where Louis wanted to be so I guess it feels right. If there are any… if any ghosts are really here, I guess I hope you can say hi to him for me.” Zayn laughs, but there’s no humor there, and his eyes are filled with tears. “Lou, if you can hear this, I miss you so much. I can’t –“ Zayn takes a breath. “It’s really hard to go on without you, you know? I just. Everything feels a little wrong when I do it, because I always want to just come to you and tell you, but you’re not there.”

“What are you on about, Zayn? I’m _right here?”_ Zayn still doesn’t acknowledge him, just stares down at the floor and shakes his head.

“This is stupid. This was stupid.” Zayn says and stands, using his crutch as support. “I hope you can hear me, mate. I hope they find your body one day and I hope we can give you the burial you deserve. I miss you so much.” Then he’s gone, and Louis goes out to chase the car, to get in so he can go with them, but by the time he’s gone through the door, the car is gone and the sun is high in the sky.

“Louis,” Harry says, his lip worried between his teeth. “I think there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Get away from me!” He shouts, and runs away, down towards the beach. Harry doesn’t follow him and that’s almost a comfort. He sits on the sand and brings his knees to his chest, breathing fast and labored.

He doesn’t understand what’s going on and he doesn’t think he ever will. The darkness surrounds him as he cries, but when he hears the sound of footsteps, he really isn’t surprised. When he looks up, Harry is standing beside him with a candle in his hand to illuminate the path.

“How are you doing?” He asks softly, like Louis is fragile.

“I don’t – I don’t know.”

“What’s going on?” He asks, tears falling from his eyes. Harry just sighs and Louis feels like he’s in for a long story, for something he isn’t entirely sure he’s going to be able to handle.

“It’s um, it’s kind of a hard thing to explain.” Harry starts. “And I know it’s probably going to  be a lot to take in, so are you sure you want to hear all of this now?”

“Yes, just tell me. I have to find out eventually, right?” Harry nods sadly.

“Okay.” A pause. The only sound surrounding them is the slow _whoosh_ of the waves and it’s something that would normally calm Louis, make him feel better, but right now he just feels overwhelmed. He doesn’t know what to do or how to handle what’s going on around him. “You died in that accident, Louis. Zayn didn’t. You did.” Louis swallows and takes another breath. “I knew when I first saw you that you weren’t alive anymore, because humans can’t interact with me and I can’t interact with them. Because I never got to see my body after I died, I’ll never be able to interact with humans. My sisters can, because they had to see themselves after their deaths.” Louis’ stomach feels like it jumps into his throat, but suddenly everything makes sense.

Harry hadn’t understood what a phone was. None of them had eaten anything in the entire two weeks he’s been here. Those were just things he hadn’t really been paying attention to – but now that it’s all brought to his attention, he’s beginning to realize exactly how weird this entire situation is.

“I’m – how? _Why?”_

“We don’t know.” Harry says with a frown. “The three of us have been stuck here for quite a while. I’m not sure what year it is but – a long time.”

“It’s 2017.” Louis says softly and Harry’s face flashes with something that looks a little more like despair.

“Wow.” Harry says with a little laugh.

“You – you’re Harry Styles that died here in 1774 aren’t you, Harry?” Harry nods and Louis almost feels sick to his stomach. He’s – he’s _dead?_ “What does all of this mean? I don’t understand any of this.”

“Neither do we. But I’m honestly not even sure there are answers out there anymore. It’s been so long of searching that I’ve decided that just living dead-life the best I can is the only way I can ever be happy.”

“What happens if I go see my body?” He asks, swallowing hard.

“You’d be able to interact with any humans you saw or ran into. My sisters usually have quite a bit of fun when some strange kids break into the house looking for ghosts.” A tiny smile breaks out over Louis’ face at that, but he still feels numb and empty, more or less.

“Why didn’t you ever see yours?”

“I don’t know where…” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know where it is. The man who killed us had something very much against my father and I and um, well, the women were killed easy, we… weren’t.” Louis bites his lip.

“I’ve read that story. No one really knows what happened.”

“I’d rather not tell you now. But maybe one day.”

“Harry?”

“Hm?”

“I do… know where your bones are buried. If… you ever want me to tell you.” Harry’s face gets blank and almost a pained expression crosses his face, but he just nods.

“One day.”


	2. II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please please read the tags! This chapter has a pretty graphic description of Harry and Harry's family's death. You can skip that part as long as you are aware that Harry's family died in a pretty cruel way, the story will still make sense. Take heed my friends. It was an incredibly difficult scene to write, so I don't want anyone to be upset while reading it.

A silence surrounds them, then, and the two of them stare out into the water. The sound of gentle waves fills the space between them and each draw of the water feels like it takes the breath from Louis’ lungs. He feels a little lost with everything he’s just heard, and he’s overwhelmed in ways that he never thought he could have been. Everything in his world has changed in a way he never even thought possible, and now he just has to deal with the aftermath.

It’s so much harder because he isn’t even sure what that’s going to look like. He’s somehow managed to fit himself into the spaces between Harry and his sisters, but he isn’t sure if that can be _forever._ He isn’t sure what he’s going to do with the rest of eternity, because that’s a length of time he never thought he’d find himself dealing with.

It’s all so much – too much – but in a way, he is grateful that he got to experience this with Harry. He’s not sure he ever would have figured out what was going on with him if he hadn’t been with the other man, or maybe he wouldn’t have figured it out so gently. Something stirs inside of him when he realizes that Harry had to go through all of this on his own – had to both approach death and figure it all out _alone._ It’s unsettling and scary to think about – but he can’t help but feel a _thank you_ heavy on his tongue for what he’s done for him.

Something about Harry shines so brightly around him. Something about how he’s so kind and selfless, so beautiful both inside and out, that makes him want to dive in deeper and learn everything there is to learn. He wants to know how he’s garnered so much love for his sisters and how he’s managed to love them so much despite being around them as kids for their entire lives. He wants to know how he handled all of this at the beginning and how he turned all of it into the beautiful existence that he seems to have laid out so perfectly around him now.

 A light breeze makes Harry’s hair sway ever so slightly beside him, and Louis thinks he could stay here forever, if Harry let him. It wouldn’t be strange or wrong to let the two of them – together – to sit here and appreciate the peace of having forever set out in front of them. He’s not entirely sure how much time they’ve had together, since time feels more like syrup dripping from a jar now, but he’s aware enough to know it’s been short. But he already feels so much like he’s found a home, a place of belonging. It’s peaceful and wonderful – despite how scared and angry Louis had felt at first.

He still feels the little bubbles of anger beneath his skin, of course, but it’s less concentrated. He thinks, at first, he’d been angry at Harry. Angry at the girls. Angry at the world. But now, when he tries to think about why he’d been so angry, he doesn’t feel anything. He knows he’s angry at the world, but it’s just a dull simmer of emotion. He doesn’t think it’s fair that he died so young, and he certainly doesn’t think it’s fair that he died and left his friend behind, but he knows now that it’s just something he has to manage.

Harry’s little breathes he can hear from beside him no longer sound emotionally labored, and he doesn’t sound like he’s about to cry anymore. It’s a strange feeling, to accept his death, but Louis doesn’t – he doesn’t _hurt._ He had always been the type to fear death and avoid thinking about it as much as possible.

But sitting here in the darkness of the night, cool ocean air surrounding him and the gentle, peaceful sounds of the world around him, he feels perfectly at ease. “Louis?” Harry asks after a long while, breaking the silence that was thick between them.

“Yeah?” He asks, turning and looking at the other boy. The moon is casting little shadows over his face and the glow of the white from the water makes him seem more vibrant than he’s ever looked before. Louis wants to kiss him again.

“Tell me about the world. How it is now. You behave so… differently than anyone I’ve ever met. What is it like, now?” Louis is almost lost for a moment, unsure what to say, when he realizes that Harry has been here, unsure of how the world around him has been changing.

“It’s… well… I’m not sure? Where do you want me to start?”

“1774?” He asks with a little giggle and Louis can’t help but smile.

“Um, I was rather shite at history in school, so, what was going on when you were alive? Give me something to go off of.”

“It’s so strange to hear of the time I was alive being referred to as _history.”_ Harry says with a little laugh, but there’s little humor in it. Dimples form on the edges of his cheeks and it makes Louis smile, too, even though it’s almost a sad smile. He can’t help the sad, guilty feeling he gets for Harry not knowing how long it’s really been since he died. Telling Harry that it’s been so many years since his death and watching his face fall into a sadness had been harder than he wanted to admit. He clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair. “I suppose my lifetime is history, though, isn’t it?” His face changes once again, but it changes into a soft, but rather sad looking, smile. “Let’s see, the last several years of my life were mostly spent worrying about the colonists. My father and I designed ships and we created the first ship that was set on expedition to sail around the entire world.”

“Oh, now I remember some things from school, then. Is there anything you want answered right away?”

“What happened after the colonists lost?” Louis blinks a few times, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Harry has this little – _certain_ look on his face, and Louis almost doesn’t want to break it to him.

“What? Oh, right. Um, they didn’t.” He clears his throat, unsure of why saying something he heard so regularly in secondary school is so awkward to say outloud, “They declared complete independence from the king in 1783.”

“ _What?”_ Harry laughs, a real, hardy laugh that makes Louis smile again. “You’re pulling my leg. There’s _no_ way. My best friend was -” Harry pauses a moment, then he lays back in the sand and pats the spot next to him, inviting Louis to do the same. “My best friend moved to Massachusetts right after he turned twenty. I was only eighteen, but he was ready to leave and start a new life for himself. Then he came back within three years because of the rumors of fighting.” The stars are beautiful and bright out here, so much that he could probably count them if he wanted to. “What else happened?”

“Um, there were more wars. A lot of them. I really don’t remember the names, other than like, the world wars. Two of those. I’ve not taken a history class in too long, sorry.” He says with a little laugh.

“That’s fine. I think I should probably stop worrying about the world, anyway. It’s better to not worry about it. It’ll only make me feel old.” Harry says with a smile.

“How old were you when you died?”

“Nineteen.” Louis sucks in a short breath, but gives a soft, gentle smile anyway. Harry doesn’t seem to have a problem with how young he had been when he died, so he doesn’t think he needs to feel bad for him, either.

“Can I ask you something that you might not want to answer? Don’t feel like you have to answer it if you’re really uncomfortable, okay?”

“Sure.”

“You said your parents left? Where… did they go?” Harry sighs softly and bites his lip, making Louis feel bad about asking. He doesn’t want to hurt Harry’s feelings – but he still wants to know. He’s always sort of believed in God – more or less – but he isn’t sure if that’s _real._ He’s confused and doesn’t know what to think. He isn’t sure if Harry has given up on his own kind of faith that he’s sure he probably had, just from being born so long again, but he doesn’t want to ask. It feels too personal to think about it after death.

“They passed on, I suppose. I think. I don’t really know to be honest. Neither do the girls.” He shrugs, just a light movement of his shoulders, but it’s enough to tell Louis not to pry anymore. He’s grateful that he got Harry to open up about it at all.

“Have you met any other… _ghosts_ in these parts?” Harry laughs a little once again, his dimpled little smile taking back over his face. “I promise I’ll stop with the questions eventually, I just. I’m curious.”

“Yes. Very shortly after we all died, we found there was a, um, _dark_ person living in our basement. He was very cruel and mean, especially to the girls. He was the one that showed them to their bodies, I think in attempt to force them to act onto his demonic ways. He left one day, after one set of living people moved into this house and then left. I think he may have followed them, but I’m not completely sure.” Louis blinks a few times, trying to take all of that in.

“How about living people? Have you seen many? Other than the group that lived here, of course.”

“You’d be surprised how many people are interested in coming and seeing ghosts. You weren’t the first to try and come see us.” He says with a little giggle and Louis rolls his eyes. A silence falls back over the two of them, but it’s comfortable. Something about the calm that Harry’s presence brings makes him feel better about everything. He doesn’t feel that ever-present need to worry anymore. Everything just feels like it’s going to be okay and that he has nothing to fear when he’s beside his newly found, curly haired friend.

“Is that the sun? _Already?”_ He asks, eyebrows furrowed as a soft glow of orange begins to glimmer over the top of the ocean in front of them. “I could have sworn I came out here just barely after sunset.”

“Time passes really differently for us than it does for the living people. I have theories of why, but I’m honestly not completely sure. It’s definitely interesting.”

“Is that why when I ran out after Zayn he was already gone?”

“Yeah. It’s really just – hard to explain. When you saw him, he was already leaving in his world by the time you were able to start listening to what he was saying.”

“How would I ever be able to properly interact with them, then? How do the girls do it?”

“I guess it all just changes after you’ve seen your body. Something about that last piece of your soul that’s left behind coming back to you, and then everything starts working in sync again.” Louis falls quiet and watches as the sun starts coming up, watches as it inches up the sky. Harry stares up at the shifting blue sky, but Louis has turned his head just enough to look over at him.

His eyes catch the shifting color and he looks stunning. Beautiful in ways Louis isn’t sure he’s ever thought about anyone before. “Do you think – would it be alright if I kissed you again?” He asks Harry and watches as the corners of his mouth turn up at the edges. They are both looking at each other now, and the energy feels perfectly charged between them.

“Of course.” He moves forward, pulls himself up so that he’s face to face with Harry and moves a strand of hair from his face. Then, he heard the oh-so-familiar sound of feet pounding against the stones of the path to the beach and watches as Harry’s face breaks out into a smile.

“ _HARRY! MR. LOUIS!”_ The girls’ voices scream at the same time, giggles coming closer as they run down the path. Harry winks and then suddenly the girls are jumping on top of them, making Louis laugh harder than he has in a long while.

“Hello, girls.” Harry says and they smile up at him before rolling off and into the sand. Louis sits up, a light flush on his face from the fact that he had almost just been walked in on by two little girls. He isn’t sure if that really would have been as embarrassing as he’s making it out to be in his head, but something about the idea of Harry’s sisters seeing him kiss _Harry_ might be a little awkward. He can imagine the relentless teasing his own sisters would have for him, but – _oh._ His body freezes a moment, tenses up, when he thinks about his sisters.

He feels almost empty now, thinking about how they’re probably with his mum now, all crying and grieving over his death. “Mr.Louis are you all right?” Amberlynn asks, a concerned look on her face.

“I’m okay, yeah.” He says and wipes at his eyes. He’s not entirely sure if there are really any tears there or not, but he wants to be safe.

“What is it?” Rosaline asks. He can’t help the little laugh that he gives at that, just because of the way the girls always seem to alternate who speaks when during conversations. Twins, as he’d learned with his time from his siblings, always seem to have such strange dynamics that someone who hasn’t dealt with a set of them before can’t really understand.

“You two just really remind me a lot of my sisters, is all.” He says with a sad smile.

“Do you miss them?”

“Of course.” He sighs softly, running a hand through his hair. Harry has a matching sad look on his face, his eyebrows pulled together. He can imagine the pain and the baggage that Harry has through his past, watching everyone around him die, so he doesn’t really understand why he is getting so much empathy. But he thinks, maybe, that Harry can remember watching the people around him have to live on without him and that’s why there’s so much pain in his gaze. He doesn’t know, though, and he doesn’t really want to speculate, so he just stares into the sky.

The sun is almost fully above the waterline now, and he stands with a little smile on his face. “I’ll race you guys back to the house. Winner choses the game we play tonight?” He asks with a little lilt of a question to his voice as he glances over to Harry. Harry laughs, a smile on his face and dimples popping out on his cheeks as he nods.

“You heard the man.” He says to the girls, and then he takes off running. Louis laughs as the sound of the girls’ higher pitched squeals fill the air around them and Harry’s long limbs seem to be just as awkward while running as they are while he’s walking. He runs past him eventually, just in the last few hundred yards before the house, but Rosaline runs just past him right before he gets into the door and tumbles through the entrance with an air of girly laughter that makes Louis forget all about the sadness he’d been feeling just a few moments before.

“I want to play tea party tonight!” She declares happily as soon as Harry and Amberlynn stumble through the door, both of them panting loudly. Louis laughs at Harry and watches as the girls run up the stairs before he places a little kiss on the corner of his mouth.

 

So the day goes easily, Harry is out working in the garden most of the day and Louis is with the girls. They mostly play with their dolls and just giggle and laugh amongst each other while Louis fades in and out from a nap, but he’s enjoying himself. He’d never thought he would be able to enjoy himself without having some kind of technology in his hand or at his disposal, but watching the pure joy coming from the girls and seeing Harry’s content from living this life is more than enough to prove to him that it is, in fact, possible to have a good life without being stuck in social media and technology.

When Harry comes back, he’s dirty. His fingernails are caked with dirt and there are a few leaves caught in his hair. There’s a smudge of dirt on his face and forhead, like he wiped some sweat from his face with a dirty hand. It’s a weird thing to think, but Louis thinks he’s the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.

“I’m going to take a bath, girls, but then it’s your turn.” He says with a smile. The girls both scream and run away at the same time and Harry rolls his eyes fondly, but Louis can see the love he feels for the girls in his heart.

“How to ghosts start to smell bad? I don’t really understand all of this.” Louis asks with a laugh, following Harry up the stairs like a puppy.

“Well, we wouldn’t if we just stayed in the clothes we died in.” He says, biting his lip. “But um, I think the four of us can relate to a point that those clothes are… not wearable anymore. I’m not entirely sure how or why that works, but it does.” Harry shrugs. Louis doesn’t really know what else to say, but Harry wiggles his eyebrows with a grin and closes his bedroom door right as the girls ambush him with tea pots, dolls, a tiara, and a few pretty necklaces.

 

The girls are in bed when Harry kisses him again. It’s a little more than before, a little more than all of the other kisses than they shared, and it blooms a heat inside of Louis’ stomach. He crawls over to sit on Harry’s lap, straddling his waist, and lets Harry kiss him. It turns dirty _fast –_ faster than he would have thought Harry would have taken it – but before long, his tongue is licking into Louis’ mouth and he feels pliant and soft.

“Come to bed with me.” Harry whispers in his ear, and he can feel the hard line of Harry’s cock against his thigh, through his pants, and he exhales shakily.

“Yes, yes. Okay.” He crawls off of Harry’s lap and lets the other man take his hand and lead him upstairs. He’s only been to the third floor the one time, when they were playing that board game with the girls, so it feels even more intimate when Harry leads him beyond the threshold of the stairs and down another hallway. There’s a painting on the wall with Harry, the girls, and two older looking folks that he assumes are Harry’s parents. The five of them have smiles on their faces, and the entire painting gives off an energy that he can’t really describe. It makes him feel incredibly happier.

Then Harry opens the door to his room. There’s a massive, four poster bed, and high-threadcount clothes hang from the walls and adorn the bed itself. The modern things that had found their way into the other areas of the house are completely lacking on the entirety of the third floor, and he thinks that might be a question for later, but right now he’s only focused on getting Harry’s hands on him.

Harry presses him against the wall right beside his bed and kisses him hard, hardhard and fastfast and it’s all incredible. He feels soft and pliant beneath Harry already, and he moans into the kiss as he wraps his arms around Harry’s neck. “Gorgeous.” Harry says and bites at the skin on his jawline before he soothes it with his tongue. “You’re incredible.”

“Harry,” Louis whines, breathing in pants as Harry’s hands travel up, beneath his shirt, and he feels fingers tweaking at his nipples. “Stop teasing me.” Harry giggles just a little and it makes Louis smile, but it’s enough to make Harry lift him and drop him on the big, soft bed and crawl on top of him.

“Hi,” He whispers quietly, and then kisses Louis’ nose. He keeps placing soft, butterfly kisses along his mouth, his jaw, down his neck, and with each undone button of his shirt, along each exposed inch of skin. It almost makes Louis’ head spin when he thinks about how fast Harry had changed from fucking his mouth with his tongue to placing gentle little kisses on his body and he’s not sure what he’s meant to think.

“Hi.” He says back with a wide smile, and finally, _finally,_ Harry’s kissing him again.

He feels slightly exposed with his shirt gone while Harry’s still fully clothed, so he starts to undo the buttons on his shirt, but beneath the first layer of buttons is a second shirt with some kind of strings attached to the buttons and he stops and just has to look at it for a moment. Harry laughs, a beautiful and airy laugh, and then he undoes it himself with practiced ease.

“Your clothing style is insane.” He says and Harry kisses the corner of his mouth.

“I could say the same about yours, since you’ve only got one shirt on.” It feels good to laugh during sex, to banter and be able to talk with someone who he can already feel that he cares so much about. “And these weird trousers you’ve got on. I’ve never even seen this material before I met you.”

“Are you getting turned on by my clothes, Styles? Because here I thought you were waiting to see me naked.” Harry laughs and rolls his eyes, but it’s barely a moment longer before Harry is peeling off his jeans and taking his cock into his hand. His hand is soft and Louis arches his back.

Before long, though, Harry’s touch is gone and he’s pulling away his own trousers and pants and then he moves to sit back. He’s looking at Louis with this fond smile on his face, and

“Here, come sit on my lap, yeah?” Louis quirks an eyebrow, but clambers over to Harry, who’s back is against the headboard. He pulls him closer, so their chests are flush together and kisses him again, and then Harry takes both of their cocks into his hand, his grip perfectly firm and his skin hot and thrusts his hand slowly.

He moans into Harry’s mouth, but he’s still relentless with his slow pace. It’s almost strange, Louis thinks, how everything feels so amplified. He’s never even thought it would be possible to feel so good – so turned on – just by having someone touch him. He’s always been the type that wanted to go straight to the fucking, straight to getting something inside of him, but with Harry, he doesn’t feel that urgency. He feels like it’s more than enough just to have Harry’s hands on him and just to have him so close.

Harry bites his bottom lip, and that’s what makes him come. His body tenses and the feeling of warmth takes over so suddenly that he hadn’t even really seen it coming. Harry follows after him, only two strokes later, but Louis is just laying boneless against Harry.

Harry’s fingers stroke through his hair and he places a few more little kisses on his head and around his face. “Would you like to stay up here with me? You don’t have to but I’d – I’d really like it if you did.” Louis laughs a little, but there’s a smile on his face.

“I would love to stay up here with you. I don’t think I have any energy to walk anyway.” Harry smiles and moves him up, settles the both of them down on the bed. Louis probably won’t ever admit it, but there’s something pleasing about being manhandled, about being moved around so easily by Harry. He’s always been a submissive type in bed, but no one who he’s ever really been with has been willing to do little things like that, like pick him up. It’s the little things that make him feel like he’s important, like he’s the center of someone’s attention.

 

Months pass easily and Louis finds himself thinking that forever wouldn’t be hard to spend here. Snow is on the ground before long and the girls are no longer allowed to go outside, just because their footprints would be able to be seen by any living people who passed through. They pout and throw fits every time he and Harry go outside together, but it never lasts very long, since Louis has never really enjoyed the cold.

It’s mid February, Louis thinks, when the air is bitter and cold, but there’s no snow on the ground. They’re walking down the road, just talking about everything and nothing and the world and everything around them, when a shiny, slick black car drives past them going much too fast for the cliff-edged road.

A sign had been put up to entice drivers _not_ to go that fast, a cross put up with it with his name engraved into the wood. They both look at each other, a sigh pushing past Harry’s lips as he turns around and makes a beeline towards the house. “The girls are in a mood for trouble. They’re going to do something stupid, I can feel it.” Harry says, a panic in his voice that Louis had never heard before.

By the time they reach the house, the car is parked and the person seems to be inside already. The girls are nowhere to be found, and Louis feels his chest tighten. “Girls!” Harry shouts, his voice echoing with a father-like authority that proves exactly how long he’s really been taking care of them. “Girls get down here right now! Without a sound!” He shouts into the front door of the house, but neither of them come.

Harry storms up to the second level, and that’s where they both see the first of the living people. The man, an older looking gentleman, has a black suit on and a briefcase in one hand. The second man is standing beside him, but there isn’t a case in his hand. He has his arms crossed over his chest and an apprehensive look on his face. “Do you really think this place needs to _go?”_

“It’s been sitting here for decades without anyone living in it. The rumors are stopping anyone from wanting to move in here, so yes. This land would be prime land to build a new hotel on, anyway.” Harry stares at them with something in his eyes that Louis has never seen before as he listens to what they’re saying. “Besides, ownership of the land went away when both of the Styles’ men died. So the house belongs to the province. Getting a deed wouldn’t be very hard.” That’s what makes Harry crumple. Louis doesn’t know what to say or what he’s supposed to do for him, so he just grabs his hand and holds it tightly.

“Girls.” He says quietly, his voice lower and more sinister sounding than anything. “Make them never want to come back here.” That’s when the girls finally decide to show up, and the men are making their way towards the third floor when they skip over past them and start pushing things off of shelves (careful not to break them) and shoving things around. Rosaline turns on Harry’s record player, but pushes the needle down hard enough that the sound comes out more as a screeching sound instead of the music.

Harry stands completely stoic, his arms crossed over his chest as he stares out the window. “If this places goes away… I don’t know what I would do, Lou. This is my entire life. It’s everything to me. Where would I go? How would I… how would both me _and_ the girls be able to go on?”

“I don’t know, H.” He says sadly. The girls do a good job of scaring them off and it’s not long at all before the two men are scrambling out of the house, running towards their car. He’s not sure if they’ll be back or not, but he can hope they wont be. He isn’t sure why, but he’s managed to create an attachment to this house, too, and in such a short amount of time. He can’t even begin to imagine the attachment Harry and the girls must have to this place. The pain of leaving would most likely be incredibly overwhelming for them if they were ever forced out.

Harry asks him to sleep with him that night and Louis agrees easily. They sleep together that night in bed, Harry wrapped around Louis in such a vulnerable way that it makes his heart ache. When the other boy falls asleep, Louis watches him for a while, just watches the way he finally gets a peaceful look on his face when the weight of the world isn’t pushing him down anymore.

It’s only when he can see that Harry has managed to calm down that he’s able to fall asleep as well.

 

The following weeks in the house are solemn. He’s not sure how the entire mood of the house has seemed to just fall below the usual feeling of joy and _life_ that he’s always adored about this family, but he can’t say it’s unwarranted. He thinks it’s appropriate, really. The fear that their home is going to be ripped away from them can’t be something that could ever be easy to deal with.

So he just helps them the best he can and tries to exist quietly when he knows he can’t. It’s a hard balance to maintain, especially because he can never really tell what’s going through Harry’s head, but they all manage.

It’s somewhere near the end of the fifth week of solemnity in the house when Harry finally speaks to him, more than a few, short sentences. “I think we both should finally go see our bodies. I think… I want to, anyway. But I don’t know if I could do it alone.”

“Of course, Harry.” He says softly, a little smile on his lips. He’s so proud of him for being willing to take that massive step, that leap into accepting the fact that he’s no longer alive. He isn’t entirely sure if Harry ever forced himself to acknowledge it or not, but just with the statement that he’s ready makes Louis’ heart feel warm and fond. “We can see mine first, if that would make it easier for you?” Harry nods sadly but then he scoops Louis up into a hug and Louis takes his favorite spot, right in the junction of Harry’s neck and shoulder, and lets the familiar happiness that comes with Harry settle in.

 

Seeing his body is – it’s a hard experience. Harry had said he would stay at the top of the hill and give him some privacy, unless he asked for him to come down. It was a much longer climb than he would have liked, but since he’d somehow managed to roll down the entire hill after he died, it wasn’t hard to imagine why they’d declared his body as lost.

His skin was pale but brown in places with dried blood on his forehead and on other parts of his arms. The bone in his calf stuck out, through the skin, and he turned around for a moment, feeling horribly nauseous. He took a deep breath as he faced away from his own destruction, and then finally turned himself back around.

His body was halfway submerged in the water of the slow-flowing creek at the bottom of the ravine, but just a few feet away, dangling from a branch of a tree, was his backpack. He gasped when he saw it, and then ran over to the little bag and grabbed it from the tree. He doesn’t want to look inside just yet, but he is more grateful than he could ever describe to have that little piece of his life with him now. It’s – it’s too much.

“Harry!” He calls out and swallows hard, sitting on a rock beside the water with his bag on his lap. “Harry! I want you to come down here!”

“Coming!” He hears from the top of the ravine. He knows it’s going to be a long while for him to be able to climb down, but he thinks that’s a good thing. Something about being face to face with himself, looking so pale and, well, _dead,_ just isn’t fitting well in his stomach. He doesn’t really want Harry to see him in this position, especially since it’s really just – _gross –_ but he doesn’t want to have to experience it alone, either. He wants to have someone to be able to talk about all of this with and he wants Harry to be that person that he can share something so personal with.

He moves to sit closer to himself, his feet in the water and goes to touch his own hair. It’s still just a bit soft, and his entire face looks relaxed and soft. Tears are pooling in his eyes as he looks at the massive cut on the top of his head, and he just moves his hair to cover it.

Eventually, Harry’s footsteps come closer and he can’t help it as the tears start pouring down his cheeks. “Lou?” Harry calls out.

“I’m over here.” He sniffles, and then there’s an arm around his waist and he holds on to Harry like his life depends on it. It does, he thinks. He feels like he might completely just float away and the world around them might completely dissolve if he doesn’t have Harry, if he doesn’t have some kind of anchor to hold him in place and keep him steady. There are too many emotions blowing through his head that he can’t even focus on a single one, but instead he just feels overwhelmed in a way he isn’t entirely sure he’s ever seen.

There’s a feeling of fullness, though, in a way he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to describe. For the last few months he’d felt somewhat hollow. Happy, of course, but _something_ was missing. He can remember, now, how Harry had said something about a piece of one’s soul missing until they were able to come across their own body, but he isn’t entirely sure he believed it. Until he experienced it, that is. He feels warmer, like everything makes more sense. Harry’s touch feels more _real_ and his body feels more alive.

It’s a strange feeling, but he’s beyond exicted to have Harry feel the same. He isn’t sure how this is going to work or if either of them are going to be any different after all of this, but he doesn’t bother thinking about that. All he can really bring himself to think about is how the happiness is blooming in his chest at the thought that he and Harry will both be able to feel completely whole; even though that piece of them that was once human is no longer there, he can’t help but think that there must have been a reason for all of this. They must have been brought together for a reason.

 

 

The grass is almost as tall as Louis as they push through it, but Harry giggles as they walk. “You’re so short. It’s actually cute.”

“Listen, not all of us were blessed with the _giant_ gene, okay. Thanks.” Louis says and swats away a few more blades of grass as they walk. He knows that Harry is probably trying to keep everything lighter and less as hard of a mood, just because this entire thing is insanely hard. He hadn’t really ever expected Harry to ask him to take him to the place where he knows he’s buried, but when he’d asked, he was entirely ready to take him to it. “Okay,” He says, opening his journal to the map once again. There’s a small, gray guest home that Louis had known was here for a long time, and it’s the last landmark on his map before the graveyard itself. “It’s about three hundred meters up that way. I’ll wait here, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Harry says, but he doesn’t walk forward just yet. “I just. I haven’t even been out here in – a long time. Since I was sixteen, probably. My gran is buried out there and I just don’t know what I’m supposed to feel right now.”

“No one can tell you what you’re supposed to feel, Haz. Just let the emotions come and feel them as they do. No one ca judge you right now for anything that you’re feeling.” That seems to make Harry feel better, and then he smiles as he goes and walks off towards the cemetery.

It’s a while before he gets curious about the guest house, though, and he grabs the doorknob out of curiosity. It opens, unlocked, and he gasps quietly as he walks inside. A loud crash and bang happens as soon as he does, and then a deep, gruff voice yells loudly, and he steps out and closes the door.

His heart is pounding and he walks entirely away from the guest house. He really has no clue what just happened, but he makes the decision not to worry about it. This is Harry’s day. This is Harry’s time to have the attention on him and he refuses to take that away from him.

When Harry comes back out, he has an entirely blank expression on his face, but Louis knows him well enough to know that he’s really just trying to mask an emotion he doesn’t want to be feeling. Louis hugs him tightly and savors in the feeling of Harry’s arms wrapped tightly around him. He feels like home and he feels like safety and everything that _could_ be between them. He can already feel that there will be happiness between them, one day. Maybe not now and maybe not in the near future, but one day.

They walk back to the house almost in complete silence and crawl into bed as soon as they do. The girls don’t say anything to them as they walk by, having been told already how heavy and hard this day was probably going to be. So, as the sun slips below the horizon and the room falls into complete darkness, Louis is almost asleep when he hears Harry whisper his name.

“Louis?”

“Hm?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.” Harry’s fingers are carding through his hair, the soothing motion almost putting him to sleep.

“When I um, when I was sixteen I told my mum and dad I liked boys more than girls.” Louis wakes up a bit at that, unsure of what he’s supposed to say or what might have warranted this discussion. “My mum was fine with it. Well, I guess as fine with it as any parent could be, to have a um, a _wrong_ son?” He pauses, fumbling over his words. Louis looks up, his eyebrows furrowed. But Harry isn’t looking at him. “My father said that I needed to have some hands on work, right? To help um, make me less _feminine._ He always said that if I just experienced some work of a man that that attraction to men would fade. So he didn’t let me work on my garden anymore and he took me to his factory every morning at the brink of dawn and we’d work together on building his ships.” Harry is gnawing into his lips, then, and Louis stays quiet. “At the ship yard I met this other young boy and –“ He laughs, just the slightest amount of humor in the tone, “His father told him the same thing. His name was Niall.”

“You said he was your best friend, right?”

“Yes.” Harry says with a fond smile on his face. “We would um, the two of us, we would sneak into the ship yards right before our shifts would end and we’d kiss. His father caught us one day, though, and he um, that was why Niall went off to the colonies.” Louis isn’t sure why Harry is telling him this story, but he listens anyway. “So, after Niall left, everything just… went quiet. It was all just slowly going back to normal. And then about two years or so after he left, the police show up at my door, telling my father that they were going to arrest me for my homosexuality.” Louis’ heart drops. “Niall’s father had told, and my father denied it. I denied it. As did Niall. So eventually, it all went away, right?”

“Oh, Harry… I’m so sorry.”

“I’m um, not done just yet.” Louis nods and Harry continues. “When Niall came back, we didn’t – there was no more romance between us. Just friendship. I mean, there was never really romance in the first place, just… experimentation, I suppose? But um, more rumors sparked up in the town about Niall and I. That’s why my family was killed.” Louis feels frozen in place, gooseflesh appearing on his arms. He has no clue why anyone would do something so _awful._ “No one knows that except me. I was on the town shopping one day when I heard two people planning it, but when I told my father he said it was outrageous and a sin to slander the people of the community. And then I was awake when I heard them come in.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Harry. Don’t feel obligated.”

“I want to.”

“Okay.”

“They made me watch everyone in my family die.” Harry’s voice cracks, the slow, syrupy sound turning high pitch just for a moment as a few tears fall down his face. “My mum and the girls first, but they went easily, I guess. My sisters both um, they hung them. From the rafters on the bottom floor. That’s why we don’t go down there often. They shot my mum. All while saying that the entire family was cursed because I was a faggot.”

“You know that’s not true, right? You know those people just – that’s not true.”

“I know that, now. It just hurts so much – that they killed _everyone.”_

“You have every right to feel pain and to want to grieve over that.”

“I guess it’s just so much worse because they made my dad suffer the same way I did, just because he defended me. My dad didn’t – he didn’t _deserve_ that.”

“What – what did they do? If you feel… comfortable sharing.”

“Dogs.” Harry says and swallows thickly. “They, um, they let dogs maul my dad.” He pauses for a long while, the silence thick and heavy. “And buried me while I was still alive.” That makes Louis’ heart sink and suddenly it all makes sense why Harry wouldn’t have wanted to go back and see his body. Of course he wouldn’t have wanted to go back to the site where he died in such a horrible and brutal way. Louis hugs him tightly, holds him close and wipes away all of the tears that fall from his face.

“I am so, so sorry Harry. I am so sorry.”

“I’m sorry for just saying all of that out of nowhere. I guess – I feel strangely better now that I’ve told someone.”

“Thank you for trusting me with that.” Harry gives a sad smile and lets Louis be the big spoon when they sleep that night. He has no issue with it and kisses Harry’s neck and whispers soothing things into his ear until he falls asleep beside him.

 

“Wait, so like, we _can_ still eat and drink? How the hell does that work?” Louis asks when he watches Harry boiling some water and putting loose leafs of some plant into a tea brewer. Harry just laughs and shakes his head fondly.

“Louis, we have all of the functions that living people do. All of the books I’ve found and read basically just say that we live on a separate plane of existance than they do. We can eat, drink, have sex, get hurt, and everything except age and die.” Louis has to blink a few times to process that information. “Every year we make up the girls a cuppa for their birthday, since we all decided that it was something we should continue to savor throughout the years. If we still had it every day and the centuries went on, we would start to take advantage of it.” It’s little moments like that when Harry’s wisdom really begins to show his age. Louis feels inferior for a moment, unsure of what he’s meant to say or how he’s supposed to feel about that before Harry places a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll still make you tea whenever you want, though.” Then he kisses Louis’ shoulder and everything feels fine.

He knows, really, that all of them are in a weird limbo of mood. These are the good days, he thinks, when Harry can shine through the shell of mourning for a few hours and be the same kind, heartfelt person that he had been when Louis first met him and remind him of why he so desperately feels the urge to stay here. To remain and share his life – afterlife – with Harry. It all feels right, strangely, even though Harry feels a little empty in his sadness.

“Harry?” He asks as the other man pours the tea he’d made into four cups.

“Yes?”

“Would you like to be my boyfriend?” Louis asks, his voice shy and low, but the smile that grows on Harry’s face followed with the happy tears that well up in his eyes tell him enough of a _yes_ that he’s more than satisfied. But when Harry kisses him again for the first time in over a week, he feels beyond happy.

 

Another two weeks of sadness go by after that, but then, slowly, things start to go back to normal. They’re out walking around in the field near the guest house, Harry chopping down the weeds and the grass with a long blade, when they both hear a loud knocking and crashing noises. Harry pauses, blade in hand, and looks over at Louis.

“I thought I was… hearing things when I heard that last time.” He says quietly, suddenly a little more afraid.

“You’ve heard this before?” Harry says, his voice low and stern. Louis almost feels bad, something like a scolded child for not telling Harry sooner. “If this is a demon… We can only hope he hasn’t been here long.” Harry goes towards the guest house and opens the door.

It looks rather nice on the inside, paintings adorning the walls and a nice amount of light streaming in through the windows. There’s a floral printed duvet on the bed, but there are holes in it from how many moths have gotten to it over the years. It’s silent as they walk inside of the space, and then the door slams shut behind the two of them. Louis jumps, but Harry stays calm.

“Styles.” A low, groggly voice says. The entire room is freezing cold, a sinister feeling settling into Louis’ bones as a dark figure emerges from the shadows. The man is midnight black, faceless, limbless, and entirely evil looking, other than two glowing red circles where Louis thinks his eyes are meant to be.

“Who are you?” A nasty, high pitched laugh echoes through the room, reverberating off of the walls and making Louis feel dizzy.

“You don’t recognize me? You’d think a man would recognize the last face he saw before death.”

“Perhaps I should have, since you’re sin and corruption that you had on the inside now matches on the outside. Your soul truly is evil.” Harry says ad louis feels sick. There’s a gentle glow coming from the other side of the room,  a soft light shining from the floor beside the bed. He walks over and on the ground is a boy who looks around Harry’s age. He looks crumpled and his face almost looks dim.

He looks over to Harry, unsure if he’s too preoccupied talking to the other demon to notice this other person. He can’t even really tell if –

“Leave me – alone.” The blond boy coughs out and covers his face with his arm. Harry comes over as soon as he hears the voice and his eyes widen. The demon-man laughs as soon as Harry sees the boy and Harry’s face turns into an expression that seems so angry that he almost feels the need to look away. Harry grabs the cross necklace from around his neck and tosses it at the demon-man, who manages a scream before he disappears.

“What just happened?” Louis asks as Harry kneels down beside the boy on the ground.

“He’s not completely gone. I’m not sure why, but silver has always had some kind of weird thing with demons. It’s kind of hilariously ironic that it’s in the shape of a crucifix that got rid of him, but that’s not why. It’s just the silver.” Louis hums a little, taking in all the new knowledge around him. Harry scoops the blond boy into his arms and carries him out.

Little mumbles of Harry’s name come from the boy’s mouth, but he doesn’t ask about it.

 

“Louis, this is Niall. Niall, this is Louis.” Harry says after the two of them emerge from the third floor sitting room several hours later. Louis drops the vase he had in his hand from shock, and watches in horror as the glass falls to the ground and shatters.

“Oh my God.” He says but Niall just starts laughing.

“You seem like you’ve… seen a _ghost_ mate.” Niall laughs at his own joke and Harry’s face is clearly twitching with the feeling of wanting to laugh as he comes over and helps Louis pick up the shards of glass that had fallen on the floor.

“You don’t have to help me, Haz.” He says quietly before he looks back up to Niall. “I just – Harry spoke about you one day and then suddenly you’re here! How – _weird?”_

“A bit, yeah.” Niall says, but he looks almost healthy. Before, he’d looked like all of the energy had drained from his body and he’d almost looked like he could have broken at any moment. “My father um, who that was, has been holding me in there a while. Waiting for Harry to go see his body so he could antagonize him. I’m glad you were strong enough to just fend him off, mate.” Niall says with a clearly fond smile in Harry’s direction.

Louis picks up the last of the shards of glass and puts them into a little bag that he’ll figure out what to do with later, but a piece of him feels like he’s intruding on a scene that isn’t meant for him to look at. He feels like an intruder in a reunion that should have happened so long ago, but now that it is he’s out of place.

“Why don’t the three of us have a cuppa, then?”

“Where are the girls?” Niall asks, a lip worried between his teeth.

“They’re out gathering flowers. They left last night and said they’d be back by tomorrow morning.” Harry says with a little smile. Louis grins, too, with the invitation he’d been given to join them in their reunion and helps Harry chop the leaves from his plants in his garden fine enough to put in the net for the kettle.

 

Niall is beyond easy to get along with, it turns out. He’s funny, and even though he speaks in a way that is sometimes a little difficult for Louis to understand, especially when he slips into the way people had spoken back in the 1700s, he gets enough of it. Harry sometimes slips back into that pattern of speech until the two of them look at Louis and see the way the cogs are turning in his head trying to understand what they’re saying that they snap out of it.

Eventually, Harry mentions that he and Louis are romantically involved and Louis can’t help the pang of guilt he feels when he watches the look of panic flash over Niall’s face. It’s almost scary to think about how much someone from so long ago really didn’t like the idea of two men loving one another. But, then again, hadn’t Harry said that he was gay, too?

“What’s that look for?” Louis finds himself asking and Harry shoots him a pointed look.

“I just um, I never thought – I thought maybe you’d be just as terrified of… being homosexual as I am.” Niall says, his voice low and he looks around with a fear in his eyes that Louis could probably never understand when he says that word out loud. Harry clears his throat and his eyebrows furrow, but eventually he looks right at his friend and asks, “What did your father do to you, Niall?”

“We really don’t have to talk about this – I’m sorry I brought it up.” Louis says, floundering over his words with embarrassment of having brought up such a clearly sensitive topic. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings – never.

“It’s all right, Lou.” Niall says with a happy smile on his face. He likes the nickname. It makes him feel like he’s fitting in fine with this little, obscure group that he’s found himself in. “My dad left me out in the middle of the harbor. Rather unfortunate for a bloke who can’t swim, innit?” He laughs and it’s almost surprising to Louis that there’s actually humor in it.

“How’d you manage to kick the bucket then, Lou?” Niall asks and Harry turns to him, too. Of course he’d shown Harry his body, but the easy way he’d managed to cover up the gash of a cut on his head to hide that vulnerable spot that showed exactly how he’d managed to die was easy. He hadn’t really consciously known he was trying to hide it until that moment. He hadn’t realized exactly how personal it was to discuss until he felt the swell of his heart and the way it felt like it skipped a few beats.

“Niall, we’ve had years to process our deaths. Give him some time.” Louis has never been more grateful.

 

The rhythm that Louis’ life builds after that is too easy. It’s almost boring – day after day he finds himself out on the water, collecting sea glass and sea shells and making strings and strings of necklaces and bracelets and anything else he can make. Then he just hangs them on the trees and lets them go.

It’s fulfilling, but only to a point. He’s bored. As much as he’s happy with his life and the girls and Niall and harassing any living people that wonder into the house, he’s bored and tired and everything just feels a little hopeless.

He’d managed to get a police man to find his body when he’d seen a car driving down the road and asked one of the girls to run down the hill with him for a reason to have the officer chase them. He’d heard the officer call into the station on his radio with a shaky voice that he’d found a body and then he and Rosaline had climbed back to the top of the hill and just gone home.

Everything else felt weird and wrong and just _not right._ He loves the girls. He loves them like he loved his own family. He loves Harry. He loves him with his entire body and his entire soul and everything he has to give – but he doesn’t love all of _this._ He craves something different and a change of scenery and maybe the chance to just interact with someone else.

He’d always been such a social person when he was alive. Always out at pubs and dancing and enjoying life and he was constantly surrounded by people. It was what made him thrive, made his life feel like it was worth living. He’s not sure if Harry would even consider going somewhere out in the world, but each and every time he’s so much at _hinted_ at finding their way down to the town just a few miles away, Harry had immediately shut him down.

The girls wanted to go. They’d said so themselves and Amberlynn had even shamefully admitted that the two of them had snuck down to the city on more than one occasion and watched as it grew over the years. Harry could never know that, though, he’d been told by Rosaline. She wouldn’t tell him why, but the certainty in her voice when she said it made him trust that it was a sensitive topic for him. But he can’t help the cravings and the _need_ down to his very core that creates such a strong desire for him to explore and travel.

So, as they’re in bed one night, cuddled up with one another, he brings it up.

“Have you ever thought about going back out into the world?”

“No, not really.” Harry says, his answer short. Louis can tell it’s something he doesn’t want to talk about, but he thinks it’s something they _need_ to talk about. It feels important, especially if they both want to stay together. It’s been an incredible time, being able to experience one another together, living in close quarters that he isn’t sure he’d ever have been able to do with someone else.

“Why not?”

“Just – just _because._ I don’t want to, okay?”

“Why not, Harry? What’s so wrong with the world? Why don’t you want to leave and branch out and let yourself do something other than sit around in this house and wait for something? I know you’re waiting to have the chance to leave and move on like your parents had, but what if that can’t happen while you’re just _here?_ What if your destiny is beyond these walls and that’s why you can’t move on? Have you thought about that?” He knows his anger is unwarranted – but he can’t help it. Something about the fear of spending the rest of eternity doing something that doesn’t really make him happy is terrifying. He loves Harry – he really does – but he can’t stay here forever.

“No, I haven’t, and I _won’t_. The girls and I are happy here, and if you’re not, then you need to go. You can’t just come in here and demand we all uproot our lives because you think we’re sheltered. I don’t want to go and the girls don’t either.” Louis has to stare at Harry for a while, just to let it all settle in and take in the words that he’d really had to say. He stands up, crawls out of bed and goes to the door without a word. Harry turns on his side, not facing Louis anymore, and he opens the bedroom door and steps out.

He isn’t entirely sure what he did to deserve such an immediate, unexplained _no_ from Harry, but it reminds him that he isn’t prepared to stay here anymore. He isn’t prepared to stay here and let the world completely pass him by until he is so out of touch with the world that he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore.

He walks into Rosaline’s room and watches her sleep with a sad feeling taking over his entire body. He doesn’t want to leave them, but he can’t let himself sit here and rot. He can’t bring himself to do that. He kisses the top of her head, careful not to wake her, and then walks out. He closes the door behind him and then walks into Amberlynn’s room. She’s awake, a book in her hand and she looks up when she sees him. “Are you leaving us, too, Mr.Louis?” He knows she doesn’t mean it to sound as horribly sad as it does, but he isn’t entirely sure how he’s going to tell such a small girl that yes, he has to go. He isn’t sure he can bring himself to explain that he doesn’t want to be here like her anymore, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to let himself walk out and put her through all of that pain.

But he has to.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. But yes, I am.” She climbs out of bed and runs up to him, wrapping him up into a waist-high hug. He picks her up, instead, so they can hug normally and she holds him tightly enough that he feels like she’s lost far more than she really deserves. “I’m certain we’ll see each other again one day, yeah? I’m completely sure.”

“I love you, Mr.Louis. Please come and see us again.” He hadn’t thought, until that moment, that his heart could break anymore. In just the year and a half that he’d been here, he’s managed to create a place in his heart for these girls, for Harry, for this house. He’s managed to create a fondness for everything here that he hadn’t imagined would be so hard to part with.

“I love you too, Amberlynn. I will try my absolute hardest to come back and see you, okay?”

“Okay.” He sets her down and watches as she crawls back into bed with a frown on her face. He closes the door behind him as he walks out, and then he makes his way down the stairs. It’s incredible, he thinks, how the world around him has changed since he saw his body. He can feel the wind on his skin so much easier, everything looks a little brighter, and the noises around him all seem a little louder.

Harry had seemed so much more beautiful, too, and thinking about that makes his heart ache. It makes everything within him ache to think about how he must leave the first person he’s ever felt such an incredible connection with.

He walks down the stairs and lets himself be surrounded by the havoc that surrounds him in the front of the house, and then the beautiful area he’d managed to convince Harry to clean up in the kitchen, just to give it a more human feeling. Tears brim in his eyes as he walks out the front door and takes in the forest on the edge of the house, then takes in the sea behind them. He lets it all sink in as he has to tell himself over and over that he can’t come back here and expect Harry to come with him if he ever wants to leave, to move on to nicer things.

He doesn’t look back as he walks down the road, past the bend, and away far enough that it’s no longer in view.  


	3. III.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took me so long to publish! Finals were absolute madness. Your local fanfiction author now has a high school diploma, though, and graduation was awesome, so I hope that excuses my tardiness.

Being alone, as it turns out, is much worse than being with Harry could have ever been. Being alive, he’d always found himself as the center of attention, the peak of volume in a room and the most influential on how a gathering would go. But when he tries to go and visit his closest friends, they don’t hear a word he has to say.

Zayn is in the library at school when Louis finds him. He’s on his computer, editing something when Louis says, “Zayn!” and goes up to touch him. Zayn doesn’t turn around, doesn’t acknowledge him, and he feels freezing cold when Louis goes to touch him. He’s the only person in the library, but as tears fill Louis’ eyes, he goes to sit down beside Zayn, moving the chair and only watching as the other man jumps.

“What the hell?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed. He’s staring at him and for a moment Louis thinks he just might see him – but then he reaches his arm through the chair and shrugs before going back to his editing. With a frown on his face, Louis looks at the computer screen and feels his heart sink.

It’s their video. Louis is on camera, laughing and smiling as they’re about to walk into a house and Zayn is following him with the camera. Then it cuts in to another video of him, but he’s passed out sleeping in the car and Zayn had been pulled over when that video was taken. Zayn clicks a few times and a black screen cuts in with his name on it and _1994-2017_ at the bottom. He assumes it’s the video was probably played at his funeral, and it makes his entire body ache.

It’s been over a year since he died, so he assumes that the video is old, that the funeral has long since passed. He can kind of understand why Zayn would be watching the video, but it doesn’t do anything to make him less sad for both himself and his friend. He doesn’t understand any of this – he doesn’t understand why he had to die when he had to leave all of his friends and his family and all of the people who cared about him behind.

“Zayn, I guess you can’t hear me, huh? But um, I miss you a lot. I wish I could talk to you. I thought… I thought I’d be able to.” He laughs a little but it clips off when he realizes that Zayn still can’t hear him. “Um, yeah. Thanks for the video. I - I love you, dude. Never forget that.”

He sits there in silence with his friend until the light outside the windows fades to black and eventually Zayn packs his laptop up into the bag and gets up. He notices for the first time that his friend is walking on an artificial leg – but he doesn’t have the crutch that he’d been using before. He still walks with a limp, but it’s not as noticeable.

He's wearing his usual skinny jeans, but the bottoms are crinkled up from when he’d been sitting, giving way to exactly how different he walks compared to how he’d walked before. It makes Louis’ heart hurt, makes him feel guilty, makes him feel _angry._

Louis wants nothing but to touch him, to talk to him, to feel alive again with his best friend at his side, but he can’t. Why did he have to die and leave Zayn behind? He’ll never get to have another lads night – he’ll never get to hang out with Zayn again just because he wants to. He’ll never get another phone call from Zayn’s mum with a request to have him call her. So many of the things he’d only ever taken advantage of during his life are gone now and it’s not _fair._

Harry had been the closest to feeling alive he thinks he’ll ever feel again – and that’s beyond terrifying. Something about the fear of never feeling alive again makes him ache. It doesn’t sit well with him to think that he has to put that much responsibility inside of one person. Harry didn’t ask for all of this; he’d only managed to completely exploit the other man’s kindness and none of it was fair.

Maybe it was for the best that he walked away.

He’d been so angry at Harry when he left – but maybe the real person he should be angry at is himself. He shouldn’t need other people to feel anything – he should be able to find those feelings in himself – and maybe that’s why he was so angry. Harry had seemed so content and so pleased just to be able to live in his own little frozen reality, but Louis isn’t sure he could handle that for very long. He isn’t sure if it would be easier or harder if he was in Harry’s situation – if he had people who love him and who he loves right beside him, experiencing the same things.

Imagining the idea that his sisters and brother will even die one day at all makes him ache worse than even the reality that he’s already dead. He can’t – being in Harry’s situation would likely be so much harder than his own and he really shouldn’t let himself be angry anymore. He should just get over it; logically, he knows that. Of course he does. It’s just – it’s easier said than done and everything _hurts._

Looking at the world he had once lived in, at the world that he thought was on his side and gave him the power of invincibility, he hurts. He doesn’t follow Zayn back to his flat, but instead he finds himself standing on the last tube of the night to Doncaster. He’s not sure who can and who can’t see him at this point, so he just tries his best to just keep calm and try and blend in.

The train comes to a stop a while later, and he steps out into pouring rain. He sighs softly as he starts on the familiar walk, the buildings surrounding him more familiar than anything else. He misses the familiarity; he misses knowing what he’s supposed to do and he misses knowing what he’s doing at all. He misses Harry and he misses _himself._

It’s not right, he thinks, that he’d died but the part of him that he’s always tried to hide from everyone else was left behind. He’d always found himself hiding behind being the party figure, the person who made everyone else happy when he really wasn’t. It’s sad, he thinks, that he had to run away from Harry, too.

The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he might have run away because the happiness scares him. Being happy and the idea of true, whole-bodied happiness terrifies him more than anything else in the world. His sadness has slowly become who he is, what he identifies himself with. Losing that would be like losing himself and something about the happiness that came with being with Harry was slowly stripping it away.

He walks into the park of his old neighborhood and sits on the bench until the sun creeps up above the edges of the houses around him. No one says anything. No one seems to notice him at all, but for the first time he’s grateful for that. Normally, he’d want nothing more than to talk to others, to catch up with slightly familiar faces and chat with the local kids, but now, he’s just content and happy to sit and be by himself.

The sun is about a quarter of the way into the sky when Louis stands up and makes his way down his familiar streets.

The backdoor to his family’s home is open, as always, and Louis walks inside with a small sigh. His mother and Dan are sitting on the couch, holding the twins in their arms as the other kids sit on the floor coloring. He’s not sure why the scene before him makes his chest feel so tight – but he can’t help but feel all of the emotions come to him all at once and they’re completely overwhelming. He hates that he can’t be here anymore, that he used to fit right in between all of them so easily and now his space where he’d be sitting right beside Doris is empty, almost as if on purpose.

Ernest is staring right at him, blinking a few times before he stands and walks right up to him. “LouLou.” He says with a laugh.

“Come here, baby.” His mum says and Louis can’t help but wave at the two, little eyes that are looking right up at him. He’d always thought it was a myth that kids could see ghosts, but now he’s not so sure.

“Lou.” He says again, louder, almost yelling.

“I know, baby. We miss him too.” Louis decides to walk upstairs, then, just to keep himself from crying.

 

He isn’t sure what he’s really feeling as he walks out of the house and just sits on the old swing that he used to play on as a child. It’s quiet other than the soft rustling of the wind blowing through the leaves, and everything is peaceful. He breathes in the cold, wintery air and tries to will the tears out of his eyes as he thinks – this is all his fault.

He’s the one who pestered Zayn into even going on that stupid trip. He’s the one who came up with the idea and forced Zayn to drive across the country with him, down clearly dangerous and rarely-used roads. He’s the one who distracted Zayn with his singing in the car and made him look away. Everything that he did led up to his own death – it all led up to making his family suffer as they all sit around and miss him. He’ll never get to tell them goodbye and all he can do now is sit around and torture himself with the knowledge that he can see them but they can’t see him.

 

He sits out there for a while, until the sun is long past down and the lights in the house have gone out. He’s certain that his mum is still sitting in bed, reading a book with her glasses perched up on her nose as Dan sleeps soundly beside her. He wants to go inside just one last time – to have one last look around before he knows he has to detach himself and leave for good.

So he creeps back inside, totally silent, and walks up the stairs. His mum is reading when he peeks through the crack in her door. All of the kids are sleeping, but when he walks into Dorris and Ernest’s room, Ernest’s little eyes open and meet his own.

“LouLou.” He says again and reaches his arms out. Louis blinks a few times, tears filling his eyes as his little brother crawls out of bed and comes over to him. “Where did you go?”  

“I had to leave, buddy. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too, so much.”

“Stay.”

“I wish I could, sweetie.”

“Stay.” He repeats and a tear finally falls down Louis’ face.

“Let’s get back into bed, bud.” He frowns, but gets into his bed without another word. “I love you very, very much.”

“Love you too LouLou.” His eyes close shortly after that, but Louis isn’t sure he’s ready to leave just yet. It hurts to know his little brother is the only one who can see him, out of the entire family. He’s not sure if it’s just because he’s so young or maybe if it’s something else entirely, but he doesn’t want to know. He wants to just move on and be free from all of this – all of the suffering and pain that he has to go through while watching everyone around him moving on while he’s stuck in this limbo.

It doesn’t feel entirely fair.

 

He leaves when the moon is high in the sky and his eyes are heavy. London is buzzing, still, as soon as he steps off of the train and back into the city. He needs to go somewhere, needs to get back into some kind of flow. If some people can see him, he could probably go back to work. As long as he isn’t working in customer service – or at least he hopes.

 

So he finds himself working in the back of a factory a month later, living alone in the smallest flat he’s ever seen, and a strong sense of unhappiness settled deep in his bones. He misses Harry. He misses the girls. He misses how he used to be and feeling alive. Every day he finds himself doing the exact same things, just like he’d been doing when he was living with Harry, but it’s even less satisfying. Nothing feels right anymore.

He steps out of the building and sighs softly, wiping off a small layer of sweat from the palms of his hands on his work pants. Working has been a very strange experience, especially since he had to move to an entirely different city, but he’s dealing with it. He’s slowly getting used to it all.

He gets on the train that will take him as close to home as he can get without walking, but as soon as he walks off into the platform, he’s met with two familiar pairs of eyes.

“Mr.Louis!” The two girls shout in unison and run up to hug him.

“Um, hi girls. What are you – how did you get here?” He hugs them back for just a moment, but then he kneels down so he’s at eye level with the two younger girls.

“We um,” Rosaline starts, “We sort of followed you the first night. And then we just did it again last night.” She says with a guilty look on her face.

“Without Harry?”

“Harry is still at the house. We didn’t tell him we were leaving.” Amberlynn says with the same guilty little look on her face.

“Girls that wasn’t – you really shouldn’t have just left him like that. He’s probabaly worried sick.”

“Mr.Louis – he hasn’t been the same since you left.” She says, her voice suddenly smaller than it had been before. “He’s been – strange. Meaner. Unlike himself.” Louis furrows his eyebrows and hugs the girls tightly one more time before taking each of their hands into his own.

“Well, you can come home with me, then. We’ll figure out something.”

As they walk, the girls describe exactly how Harry has been acting. It almost hurts when they tell him he’s been saying the same things he’s been thinking the last few months, but it hurts even more to hear about how withdrawn and sad he sounds.

It hurts him in the worst ways, especially, when Rosaline says that she hears Harry mumbling his name in his sleep regularly and that he gets angry and snaps whenever either of them bring him up. “When she brought you up over tea the other night, Harry smacked her.” That’s really what draws the line, he thinks. These girls can stay with him as long as they’d like and that’s the very least he can do.

 

“Alright, so you girls can have my bed, okay? I’m gonna set up a little something for myself here on the floor. I’m sorry we’re all so close to one another, but this is what we’re going to have to make do with for now. I’ll find something better eventually, okay?”

“Thank you, Mr.Louis.” Rosaline says softly, coming up to him and hugging him tightly. He wraps his arms around the smaller girl the same way, and as soon as she pulls away he kneels down so he’s at her eye level. “We really do love you.”

“I love you girls too, alright? Never second guess that.” It’s true – he knows it is. He knows that he’ll love these girls like they’re his own for as long as they let him. It’s dangerous, since that could very well be _forever,_ but he finds himself less and less afraid of that kind of commitment every day.

Things have changed and they will continue to change, but he’ll remain the same. He’s slowly managed to come to terms with that slightly terrifying reality, but he knows it’ll do him good to be able to accept it. If two little girls can and have, then he certainly should be able to, too.

Eventually, the girls go back into his tiny little room and settle on the bed together. They look smaller that way, he thinks, curled up on a twin mattress with one another as they sleep. But it helps him remember that everything is going to be all right. The three of them together will figure something out, whether that be going back to Harry or just staying on their own. He doesn’t mind either way.

When he curls up on his couch, a spring digging into his back, he somehow finds himself more comfortable than he’s been since he left Harry’s. Harry’s presence made him feel more alive than he ever has, but being away from him, from the girls, he fell into a routine of mundane, boringness. It all led up to him wanting to run away and wanting even more to just find some kind of happiness, some resemblance of what he’d felt before.

It’s not all the way back, not just yet, but it’s getting there. He knows it will all be okay, eventually.

 

The girls wake him up bright and early the next morning when they accidentally knock something over in the kitchen. His eyes blink open and he finds the two of them rummaging through his cupboards and looking for something, so he stands as quietly as he can and sneaks up on them.

They end up laughing after they get over the initial fright, and he helps them find the tea, which is what they’d been looking for, and still pretends to be surprised when they make him a cup. He feels like he has a family again, and it really does feel incredible. He misses his little sisters every day, and he loathes that he’ll never get to be a father, but with the two girls there with him, he almost feels normal again, like he has a chance to go back to how things were before all of this happened.

It’s a good feeling.

“All right girls, I have to go to work. I need you two to stay inside today, okay? Just for your own safety, but we can go out when I get home okay? Promise.”

“Okay, Mr.Louis.” They both say in unison – but Louis is used to how they speak at the same time now. He finds it’s much less creepy when he remembers that his own twin siblings had done it quite often when they were younger, too.

“It’ll just be for a few hours. See you later!” He says and kisses each of them on their cheeks before he walks out of the door and makes his way down the street.

It’s a busy morning and he doesn’t really enjoy the crowds anymore. It’s all managed to lose it’s novelty when he realized that he can’t speak to any of the people who he once loved and cared for. They all had to let him die, so he supposes that it’s only appropriate if he lets them die for himself, too. They’re still living on, but they have to live in different worlds, and that’s just something he has to live with.

As he works that day, he tries not to think about anything except the boring pressing of buttons as he watches the metal clank together behind the glass screen in front of him. Thinking does him no good. It certainly wouldn’t do him any good now, and he knows that. Just letting the feelings come and go and ignoring them would be the best plan.

 

“Girls!” He calls out as he walks into his flat. The two of them are sitting at the kitchen table, reading sections from the newspaper that they must have found right outside of his doorstep. They drop it as soon as they see him and both come up and hug him, telling him all the things that they did that day.

The two of them have never seen technology before, so it’s almost incredible to listen to the way that they rave on about how they can see the lights from his bedroom window cast from the city or how the light inside of the cold box comes on every time they open it, and then goes off every time they close it.

He finds it incredibly endearing. “I think we should all go out and get some ice cream, yeah? Celebrate something new happening.” The girls squeal and nod happily before Louis takes both of their hands in his, and then they’re off.

As they walk down the street, each of them take turns asking questions about what things are that they see, and Louis always answers and tells them, letting their enthusiasm bring up his mood more than he thought was possible after a boring shift at work. He’s always loved kids, something about their excitement and innocence bringing him a new sense of joy and an entirely new outlook on the world.

The rain started coming down as soon as they left the flat, but the air is warm around them, so a little walk in the rain is pleasant. Amberlyn jumps into a few puddles and laughs all the while, giggling even more when she splashes a little of the water onto Louis’ trousers.

They’re only about two blocks from the ice cream shop when Rosaline stops walking and Louis turns to her. She has a blank look on her face, but she’s looking at something.

As soon as he looks up, all of the emotions he’s been holding back in the last few weeks suddenly come to the surface and he doesn’t know what to do with them. The girls both look indifferent, but he feels too much, so much, all at one time that it’s overwhelming.

As soon as his eyes meet Harry’s, they fill with tears. He looks so different – so, incredibly different – standing on the street, rain-wet hair flat against his shoulders. The material of his clothes is loose and he’s never seen him wearing it before, but it sticks to his skin and the white of his shirt shows little traces of ink through the material.

They just look at each other silently for a moment, but then they’re brought together, like a force neither of them could control. Harry hugs him tighter than he ever has, and the tears fall freely down Louis’ face.

The girls are still quiet, and they stop a few feet away from Harry and Louis, just looking at them as the two come together like it’s been forever. It’s been too long – but it’s perfect. He thinks this was the reunion they needed, the energy they needed to come back together and become everything that they ever dreamed of being together.

“I couldn’t come out into the world because it made it all too real.” He says, finally breaking the silence. “I still – I really still haven’t accepted death, or the fact that I’m alone here. That I _was_ alone here. Then I met you and I guess I just. I wanted to keep you here, to myself, away from everyone else. That was so, so very selfish of me and it wasn’t fair of me to do. You aren’t from my time, you’re from… you’ve been surrounded by all of this your entire life and you’re used to it. I’m not. It’s overwhelming and it just serves to remind me that I shouldn’t be here, that I don’t belong here. But I want to try with you. I want to be with you. Forever.”

“I shouldn’t have just left. That was really just wrong of me but you’re right. I am from all of this, the modern things. I didn’t think I could live without it but now all I want is to be with you, to go back to how things were before.” Harry holds on to him a while longer, and when they break, there are droplets of water on Harry’s cheeks, holding their shape only for a moment before growing too heavy and sliding down his perfect, pale skin.

“I’m centuries old, yet just a few weeks without you brought me to my knees. Something about you, Louis Tomlinson, is everything I ever could have asked for. You’re everything and more than anything I ever imagined I could have needed. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I didn’t realize you were what I needed, too, until I was here, alone, and everything felt wrong. You make me feel alive; you make me feel alive in ways I didn’t even when I _was_ alive. You’re my everything, Harry.” Harry’s smile reminds Louis of everything good in his life, of exactly how lucky he got to find him when he did.

“Would you like to show me around your city?” Harry asks, stroking his hands through his own wet hair.

“The girls and I were just about to go get some ice cream. But, to be honest, after that, I think I’d like to go back home.”

“With me?”

“Of course. Wherever you are is my home, Harry.”

 

** 7 months later **

Louis opens his eyes on a bright, fall morning, to an empty bed beside him. He sighs softly but rolls himself over, forcing his legs over the side of the bed and sitting up slowly. The house smells like cinnamon and vanilla, a tell-tale sign that Harry has been up and roaming about the house for at least an hour. The two candles are lit at opposite ends of the room, but the scents mix well and they always serve to remind him of Harry.

There’s noise coming from the down stairs, so Louis knows he most likely managed to over sleep, but he doesn’t mind as much as he probably should. He has all of eternity to promise himself early mornings and waking up with the sun.

He dresses quickly, putting on his favorite pair of loose fitting jeans and a simple tee shirt before he finally makes his way to the second floor living room. Harry is there and he can see the girls roaming about the backyard gardens through the window, picking the last of the flowers that are still alive through the slight autumn chill.

The newest addition to their little family comes in the form of a still-living girl named Emily. She had read on the internet that the house was haunted, and since she was a child she’d been able to communicate even with ghosts who shouldn’t have been able to communicate with humans, and came to find out.

They took her in easily when they found out she was actually one of the kindest souls they’d ever met. When she purchased the house after they invited her to, all of them were happy together. She even helped Louis renovate the first floor, just like he’d wanted ever since he set his eyes on their home.

Emily even helped them grant both Harry and Louis’ wishes of both being fathers one day. She went on regular trips across the country, finding lost spirits and convincing them to find their happiness, but when she’d come across a small boy, just barely older than six, she’d brought him home and introduced him as Lucas. They took him in faster than anyone else could have asked for.

The upstairs was still their sanctuary, but together they’d made it theirs. Instead of it just being a private area for Harry, the two of them came together and made the space something that couldn’t be distinguished as unique to either of them, but only as both of them together.

“I’m going to take the girls and Lucas out today, if that’s still okay with the two of you?” Emily asks over tea that morning, and both Harry and Louis agree happily. The two of them had long since decided it would be good for the kids to be able to experience the modern world, to be able to see things for themselves since they all died so young.

As soon as Emily closed the door behind her, Louis crawled onto Harry’s lap and kissed him softly. “We have alone time.” He whispered softly, making a grin spread across Harry’s face.

“Let’s go upstairs.” That’s all it takes before their hands are tangled together and the two of them are running up the stairs.

As soon as they’re through the threshold of the room and the door is closed behind them, Harry picks Louis up and sets him down on the bed. “Love you, love you, love you.” He whispers between the kisses he places on Louis’ lips, and everything feels beyond perfect.

He opens Louis up with his fingers, first, like always, pressing his tongue between the digits between thrusts and making Louis whine and moan into the pillow he’s got his face smushed against. Every drag of Harry’s fingers inside of him feels perfect. Harry has long since learned how to make him feel the absolute best he can, and Louis relishes in it.

But each slow drag of his cock is even better, filling him up and making him feel even closer to his forever-partner than he ever thought possible.

Like always, once they’re finished, Harry cleans them up with a warm flannel and the two of them cuddle. Usually the cuddling is cut short, but today, they have as long as they want, and it’s a feeling Louis knows he could get used to.

“I love you.” He whispers softly to Harry. He gets a kiss on his jawline in response, but it’s enough. Their love doesn’t always have to be said out loud.

It’ll be remembered forever, by the way that the house glows with the happiness of their love, eternal in the energy of the space around them. It’ll be remembered forever in the hearts of anyone who witnessed it, and most of all, the two of them will remember it until there is nothing left of them.

When Louis closes his eyes, it feels different. He isn’t entirely sure what he’s feeling, but the way Harry’s hand tightens around his, he thinks that he feels it, too.

When he opens his eyes to a completely new setting, glowing white and colors more brilliant than anything he’s ever seen, he doesn’t feel anything. But when he sees the look on Harry’s face sitting beside him on the bright green of the grass, he already knows he’s in paradise.  


End file.
